


skies of lilac hues

by byunderella



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Body Swap, Countryside Woojin, Dance Competitions, Dance camp, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Seoulite Jihoon, Summer Camp, i threw some dodaeng in there because i love my children, my entry for the 2park secret santa, this ended up being a Your Name/Freaky Friday/Bring It On fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 08:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12837360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byunderella/pseuds/byunderella
Summary: Jihoon doesn't think things could get any worse when his dance crew loses to Woojin's at Nationals, but after an argument and a suspicious statue, they find themselves more entangled in each other's lives than they had ever wanted to be.or, the Your Name/Freaky Friday/Bring It On fusion that no one really asked for but may need anyways





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suchaboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchaboy/gifts).



> hi friends! so this was originally supposed to be a Your Name au but this fic doesn't follow the events of the original movie as much as i had first planned for it to (just the body swapping part and bits of the twilight stuff), and instead it became a merge of Freak Friday and Bring It On: In It To Win It (i don't own any of the plots to these three movies) and it follows the last two more closely (especially bring it on)
> 
> i hope you enjoy this mess <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _ignis aurum probat_ — fire tests gold

 

 

 

 

| _ignis aurum probat_  

 

 

_Seoul is only two days away_

Woojin reminds himself almost every second that day. The excitement bubbling in him grows bigger and bigger each passing minute. And maybe it doesn’t seem like it should be that much of a big deal. But Seoul is so much more than just a city—it’s an opportunity to figure this life out. He could roam the sleepless city lights, or stroll grand galleries, or even graffiti stained alleys. The city, where life isn’t monochromatic, somewhere he can redeem his spirit. This town can’t ignite his dying flame; Woojin wants to see what life is like beyond these walls, to see the light that his town tries to hide from him.

 

It’s not that he doesn’t love Busan, but it's just that he’s spent far too long inside his shell. There’s so much to the world that he still hasn’t discovered; he wants to exhaust the night with possibilities, even just for a few days.

 

And if there’s one person that’s more excited than he is, it’s Daehwi. But at least when he squealed about it, he was considered cute. When Woojin raved about it, all he ever got was glares from his younger sister, who claimed to be ages more mature than him.

 

“That’s ridiculous, Yerim. I’m starting college next year.”

  
“I wish you acted like it.” The little girl said, aloof, followed by a snicker from Daehwi.

 

So maybe he’s a little childish, but isn’t everyone a kid at heart?

 

 

 

Woojin’s dance team had upped the number of hours of practice every nearing day of Nationals. He knows that everyone in the crew are set on winning, they made it clear with their compliance to give up a few extra hours of their day to dedicate to perfecting their performance pieces that they weren’t planning on going home if it wasn’t as the holders of first place. Maybe it's shallow, maybe people could say that they aren’t really in it for the love of dance itself, but for the competition, but Woojin disagrees.

 

Dance has always been one of the most important things in his life, especially when he’s spent the majority of his life doing it. There’s nothing more thrilling, nothing more blood-tingling or _electrifying_ that could ever compare to it. Dancing was in his blood, he thinks he has the right to be greedy. He’s thinks their _entire team_ has the right to be greedy—to be expectant, to be _ambitious_. These competitions were cutthroat, especially since their rival team from Seoul—Echo—had been champions three years in a row. The root of their rivalry seemed to stem from previous years of tension between his team Captain, Kang Daniel, and Echo’s captain, Ong Seongwoo. Woojin had only auditioned for the team this year, so he isn’t quite sure what their story is, all he knows is that both of their teams have been at odds for three years.

 

Although Woojin could admit to being self-confident some of the time, he knows that Echo is home to many amazing dancers, ones he’d even looked up to as a young teen at competitions. They’re nothing if not adamant—he’s not even sure if they even get free time, with both school going on and preparing for the competitions in the midst of their exams. He’s heard stories from Donghyun, the only one out of their friend group who has been to Seoul. He’s seen them in action, he’s seen how vigorous they work to ensure the gold, to uphold their pride as Echo members, as _Seoulites_. They’re inclined to be stubborn, snobby, and pretentious—they’re city kids who think their upbringing in the capital of South Korea is the very justification for insisting their superiority. Woojin doesn’t even have to know them to hate them.

 

Daniel is extra harsh on them the day before they leave—he yells if they don’t form perfect symmetric lines and if someone doesn’t raise their arm high enough they get the ‘do you want to win?’ lecture from him. Woojin knows that he’s stressed, clearly more than the rest of them. He follows along quietly so as to not draw attention to himself and he’s relieved when he makes it out of practice lecture-free. His limbs are aching and he falls to the ground along with Daehwi immediately after Daniel dismisses them.

 

“I think I've just lost half of my lung capacity.” Daehwi wheezes out from his spot on the floor, heaving heavily. Youngmin comes over and holds a hand out to pull Woojin up. They let out refreshing sighs as the slight chilly breeze of the late spring night hits them as they walk out of the studio, the sky now darker than it was when they arrived.

 

“Oh my God, can you believe we’re going to Seoul tomorrow?” Daehwi squeals in excitement, jumping up and down while flapping his arms like a bird with that endearing eye smile of his. The three of them watch him fondly, knowing how important it was for Daehwi to experience the city—to see the lights that shined as bright as him in every direction. Daehwi had a deep appreciation for every form of art; whether he could see the other teams in the competition, stroll through art galleries, or enjoy a musical, he’d have admiration for any of them. Youngmin could pass by the various companies of the rappers he admired, walk the very streets they live in and gather inspiration from the stories the city told. And Donghyun could watch the buskers, who would remind him of the reason he’d taken to journey on this path, a rediscovery of his dreams and why he loves what he does and how it makes others happy. Their entire group is a mix of different kinds of artists, and maybe you could say that together, they’re a masterpiece.

 

 

+

 

  

Daehwi can barely sit still in his seat on the bus, and it’s clear to him that Youngmin and Donghyun would want to sit next to each other on the two-hour long ride, so that leaves Woojin stuck beside the cheery boy, who ends up whacking him in the face with his happy dance more than once. Woojin eventually has to pull the boy down, “Would you sit down already? It’s only half past nine and you know that irritated-Woojin doesn’t leave until after eleven.” He grumbles, sliding further down his chair and closing his eyes, resting his cheek on his neck pillow.

 

Woojin doesn’t even have to open his eyes to know Daehwi is pouting, “Do you know how to spell buzzkill? Here’s a hint, it starts with a W.”

 

Daehwi ends up getting hit in the face with Woojin’s other pillow, and he finally simmers down, putting in his earphones and humming quietly to himself.

 

Two hours go by rather quickly and before they know it, they’re driving through the streets with tall buildings with huge screens playing music videos on the sides of them. “Wow.” Daehwi leans over Woojin to look out the window, marveling. The younger gasps eagerly, “Oh! Do you think we’ll get to bump into idols on the street?”

 

Woojin snorts, “I don’t think that kind of coincidence happens as often as you think.”

 

“Don’t crush my dreams, Woojin.” Daehwi snaps at him, and then turns to talk to Youngmin and Donghyun. Woojin is still looking out of the window, admiring the city. He’s determined to make the most out of his time here, before the vivacity of it all fades away and he’s taken back to dreariness.

 

Once they reach their hotel room, Woojin is rushing towards the side of the bed closest to the window and the heater and calling dibs. Daehwi falls to the floor in despair when he’s a second too late, and ends up having to take the other side. Youngmin snorts at the two of them, “Why does it even matter what side you’re on?”

 

“I call this side!” Donghyun flings his bag onto the other bed, on the side closest to the wall.

 

“Hey, I wanted that side.” Youngmin snivels, earning side-eyes from both Woojin and Daehwi.

 

It’s not the most luxurious hotel, but there’s really no complaining. Woojin is just thankful he gets to sleep in an actual bed for a few nights, opposed to having to sleep on the floor in his room back in Busan. And he had Daehwi right next to him, who he would have to give him a sense of home while they’re far away from it.

 

Daehwi is pulling Woojin out of their hotel room quicker than he sprinted in, and in the lobby he can see a group he recognizes as LDT from Gyeongju, as printed on their hoodies. They had come in third place last year, and Woojin knows they’re not people to take lightly. 

 

Youngmin and Donghyun catch up to them shortly after as they’re roaming the outlets of Myeongdong. There’s a surge of pedestrians, with stacks of stores and cafés lining the streets. They stop by plenty of street food vendors and make the most out of their free time outside before they’re back to practicing. Donghyun pulls them towards a man with a guitar, singing in the middle of the district. There’s a small group of people gathered around him, smiling and clapping along to his song. Donghyun seems to derive some inspiration from it because he’s smiling brighter than usual. “Wow, I wish I had the courage to perform with my guitar on the streets like that.”

 

“Maybe you could do a performance here before we leave for home.” Youngmin suggests, but Woojin can sense Donghyun’s panic before it even reaches his face.

 

What? No!” Donghyun waves his hands around, flailing momentarily before bringing his clasped hands up defensively to his chest, anxious. “I can’t do that, that’s terrifying!”

 

“Come on, Donghyun.” Daehwi puts a hand on the older’s shoulder. “Your stuffed animals can’t be your audience forever.”

 

Woojin snickers at that, but is soon shot down by a whack in the chest from Daehwi. He clears his throat and adds, “Yeah, you’re talented. You should stop hiding that behind the walls of your room.”

 

Donghyun bites the inside of his cheek, his expression thoughtful as his gaze lingers on the performer. He soon snaps himself out of it and puts on a small smile, clapping his hands together. “Anyways, enough about me. Let’s go eat!”

 

 

+

 

 

As Woojin predicted, Daniel is nothing short of a hell instructor during practice that afternoon. Somehow he feels like he’s joined the army instead of a dance competition. But he knows that in the end, their effort and hard work won’t betray them, so he puts his everything into their routine. They practice for hours and hours until the only things they can see out the window are the city lights among the onyx skies. During their break, Daehwi springs over towards the window in awe, astonished by the beauty a night is Seoul had to offer. “I wish I could see this every day.”

 

“Maybe one day you’ll move here and this will be your view.” Youngmin wraps an arm around the younger’s shoulder and gives him a fatherly smile.

 

After squeezing in one more hour of practice, the group heads to a restaurant for dinner. And it would have been enjoyable if Echo hadn’t walked in just a few moments after they start eating, all high and mighty. Seongwoo walks over to them, looking down at Daniel and scoffing. “Ah, look who it is, the forever second placers. I don’t know why you’re even trying this year, Niel.”

 

Daniel balls his hands into fist, biting down his tongue as he speaks. “Don’t call me that.” The rest of the table grows quiet, tension floating through the air.

 

Seongwoo smirks as Daniel stands up to meet his gaze, “I wouldn’t have to call you anything if you’d just give up already.”

 

Daniel crosses his arms over his chest, “That just goes to show you’re scared.”

 

Woojin’s eyes dart back and forth from the two captains, as the rest of the group debate whether or not they should step in. Seongwoo lets out a laugh, “Scared? Why would _I_ be scared of _you_?”

 

“You’re so set on us pulling out of the competition, claiming it to be because you’re only concerned that we’ll be hurt if we don’t win.” Daniel takes a step closer and for the first time, Woojin sees Seongwoo waver, slowly leaning back. “But if you were so confident in your team, you wouldn’t even bother wasting your time on us. But then again I’m not surprised, your self-esteem has always ebbed low.”

 

That seems to get Seongwoo riled up, judging by the contortion of his expression, from brash to indignant. Woojin stands up and moves to Daniel’s side, coming face to face with a blonde boy who stares him down the second he sees him. The boy maintains eye contact with him, and Woojin would hold an unwavering stare of his own too if he didn’t feel so small under the pretty boy’s gaze. “Tame your captain, will you?”

 

Woojin immediately scoffs, “Your captain started it, how about you tell him to mind his own business.”

 

The blond chuckles and Woojin has to act like it doesn’t throw him off guard, “You’re obviously new, so let me make it clear for you. We’ve won this thing three years in a row and if you think your little team can outdo us then you’re nothing but a typical countryside fool.”

 

Woojin usually prides himself on being level-headed but he doesn’t quite manage to bite the retort from falling off of his lips, “I’d rather be a fool than a pretentious, stuck up bitch.”

 

The boy’s nostrils flare up and Woojin holds his glare this time, finally feeling stronger for once. Seongwoo’s voice comes out bitingly, his scowl still directed at Daniel. “You’re fucking ridiculous, you know that?”

 

Woojin watches as Daniel smirks, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning forward. Seongwoo falters at the proximity, and Daniel lowers his voice, though what he says is loud and clear to everyone, “And _you’re_ a terrible kisser.”

 

Gasps break out from both groups, with snickers from behind. Woojin’s eyes widen at the revelation, and then things begin to make sense.

 

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because soon, the guy behind Seongwoo walks out in front of him and grabs Daniel by the collar. “This guy needs to learn his place, don’t you think?”

 

Youngmin stands up and strides towards them, glaring down the Echo member grabbing at Daniel. “Hey, don’t start something here. Let him go.”

 

The guy jerks Daniel aside, taking a step closer to Youngmin with a menacing sneer. “In fact, your entire crew needs a reminder about whose turf they’re infesting.”

 

And the next thing he knows, the two groups are in a brawl right in the middle of the restaurant. People are grabbing and jerking each other around. One of them gets thrown into the table and knocks over a bunch of glasses. It’s not long before the owners and employees are tangled into the mess, yelling and pulling people apart from each other.

 

 

 

 

“I can’t believe we got kicked out. We weren’t even finished eating!” Daehwi whines as he’s slipping pieces of meat he’d taken with him in a napkin into his mouth.

 

“Well we weren’t exactly the most exemplary customers.” Woojin reminds him as he’s wiping the small trickle of blood off of his lip with his thumb.

 

“This is all Echo’s fault.” Daehwi laments, waving a piece of meat accusingly in the air. “Those narcissistic freaks think they own this entire city, it's absurd.” 

 

“That blonde kid called me a countryside fool.” Woojin grumbles, kicking at a stone on the ground in front of him. Who was he to call him a fool only a minute after they had met? City people really are horribly uncivilized.

 

“Echo should really change their name to Ego. How can so much ego be in one group?” Youngmin joins in, frowning at his flannel, which had lost a button in the fight.

 

If anything, the confrontation had driven their desire to win even _more_. If they thought they could get away with messing with them then they were in for it. They were going to crush their damn self-pride once and for all, and show them that they had no superiority over the countryside.

 

 

_Bring it on, assholes._

  

 

+

 

 

Competition day arrives soon enough and rather than letting the anxiousness to get to him like it usually does, Woojin manages to stay confident, _greedy_. The confrontation with Echo seemed to have the entire group feeling that way, there was no room for doubting themselves, they were going to win.

 

“Have fun on stage watching us win first place, losers.” Seongwoo’s presumptuous voice rings out from behind them as they’re huddled up backstage.

 

“Have fun eating your words, assholes.” Daehwi sticks out his nose at them, earning an eye roll from the rest of the Echo members. Woojin shoots them all a dirty look, and his gaze finally lands on the blonde boy, who’s already glowering at him.

 

Woojin scowls, turning back to their group. “Let’s crush some Echo ego.”

 

Their crew is set to perform second last, so it’s a while before they’re actually on stage. For an hour they’re seated backstage, watching the various performances on the screen. Echo performs two groups ahead of them, and the entire group goes tense as their rival group takes the stage. It’s undeniably good; Woojin knows that not all of their talk is _just_ talk. Some of them become apprehensive, but Daniel reminds them that they’re good too, maybe even better. And they've worked their butts off to perfect their piece. With resolved hearts and minds, they come out on stage and give their performance everything they’ve got.

 

 

 

 

It’s a torturous wait, as they’re standing among the rest of the crews on stage as the judges determine the results. Echo is on the other side of the stage across from them, with straight backs and haughty looks. Woojin thinks that it’s a front; he can see it in their eyes, they’re worried. And they have every reason to be, because for the first time, Woojin didn’t have any regrets after leaving the stage. He put his heart into the entire six minutes and none of it was in vain. He reassures his friends beside him that they’ve got it in the bag.

 

The MC comes up when they’re finished and they immediately grab onto each other’s hands. He congratulates everyone on a job well done and tells them that no matter who takes home the trophies today, everyone is a winner. And Woojin would like to say he agrees to keep his expectations low, but he’s always been competitive, and not placing first isn’t exactly his (or his team’s) objective right now.

 

“In third place, LDT!” The group lets out the breaths that they’ve been holding. They could still be first, anything lower than fourth isn’t even an option, it shouldn’t be.

 

“And now we’ll announce the contenders for first place.” The theater goes quiet, all eyes and ears focused on the MC and the envelope in his hands. “Echo and South 51!”

 

The groups exchange glances—South 51 looking excited and anticipative, while Echo seem to be on edge.

 

“Oh my god, oh my God, we could actually win this!” Daehwi whisper yells, clutching onto Woojin and Donghyun’s hands tightly.

 

“And the first place winners of the 2017 Korea Dance Festival is..”

 

There’s a long, agonizing pause, and Woojin can hear Donghyun chanting quietly, ‘ _Come on, come on, come on.._ ’

 

“..South 51!”

 

 

+

 

 

 

 

“I can’t believe we did it!” Daehwi squeals, admiring the trophy in his arms. Donghyun and Youngmin smile next to him, also staring at it in awe.

 

Daniel brings them into a group huddle with a big smile, congratulating them on an amazing performance. They gather together and do their chant one last time, now with the distress off of their shoulders. To their left, Echo is walking off of the stage, eyeing their group menacingly.

 

“Don’t worry, there’s always next year!” Daniel shouts at Seongwoo in mock-consideration, who only scowls before walking away, followed by the rest of them. Man, did victory feel good.

 

Youngmin grabs back the groups attention with a clap, “Let’s go celebrate guys!”

 

 

After dinner, the four of them knock out almost immediately, their showers somehow making them even more tired. It’s their last night in Seoul and it’s a little bittersweet; they had placed first and they were ecstatic, but it feels like it had all flashed by so quickly. They were going home tomorrow and everything was going to go back to the way it was, he’d go back to living his routinely placid life.

 

“Can you believe how well the year is already going for us?” Daehwi reflects thoughtfully, head rested on Woojin’s chest. “We got to go to Seoul, we won the dance competition, we beat _Echo_. It all feels so surreal..”

 

Woojin smiles, relaying his mutual delight through soft pats to Daehwi’s back. “Well believe it, hard work never betrays you.”

 

“So how are you feeling about today? I know that dance is the most important to you out of all of us.”

 

Woojin sighs contentedly, “I feel like I’m on cloud nine.”

 

The second their crew was announced as the winner was one of Woojin’s most cherished moments of his life. He knows that he shouldn’t have to count on a trophy and ranking to validate his talent, but he can’t help but feel like all of his time and heart he’d put into dancing was reinforced by that magical moment on stage, where choosing this path felt worth it.

 

“You know where you have that sort of epiphany, where you’ve always known you’ve loved something, but every now and then you’re reminded of just how much you love it?” Woojin continues as Daehwi listens earnestly, “That’s what I feels like right now, like the universe is telling me not to give up what I love.”

 

“I hope you never do.” Daehwi whispers, and with that, they slip into slumber land.

 

 

+

 

 

The group wakes up extra early, thought sore from how vigorously they had indulged themselves into their performance the previous day. Their things are packed and loaded onto the bus, and they spend all of their morning and afternoon exploring the city before they have to say goodbye. Woojin wanders the stores, picking out small things to bring home to his family, knowing very well Yerim would have his head if he came home empty-handed. Apparently, ‘ _Yerim, we’ll still be in Korea’_ wasn’t a very good argument to her.

 

The group has a small picnic for lunch near the Han River, as they watch the citizens play around the park. Daehwi watches as a couple riding a tandem bike passes them and jumps up excitedly, pulling at Woojin’s sleeve. “Woojin, let’s ride one of those!”

 

Woojin releases his sweater from Daehwi’s grasp, “Why would I do that? You know I can’t bike!”

 

The younger pouts, “Come on! I’ll be doing all of the work anyways—wait, this suddenly sounds infinitely less appealing now.”

 

Woojin snorts as Daehwi sits back down defeatedly, biting angrily into a strawberry. The day goes by as quickly as it came and they start to make their way towards the bus as the sun is setting. Woojin is too occupied with his phone on the way there that he ends up bumping into someone a few steps away from the bus. At first he thinks he had almost bumped into a statue, but then he looks up and sees the statue on his left and realizes it had in fact been an actual person. He opens his mouth to apologize, until he comes face to face with a familiar blonde, already sporting a scowl. “How about you watch where you’re going?”

 

Woojin stares at him incredulously, “Funny of you to say that because you were on your phone too.”

 

“Why don’t you just go running back your stupid little crew?”

 

Woojin catches Youngmin’s glance, “Woojin, come on. We’re boarding the bus.” 

 

“I’ll be there in a minute, I have a bone to pick with this guy.” Woojin grits out through his teeth, fist curling up into a ball. He stays glaring at the blonde for a while, and then loosens up, sticking his chin up defiantly. “You seem to be much snappier today. But then again you did take a big hit to your pride last night, you know, losing to some countryside fools.”

 

The blonde rolls his eyes, but before he can throw back a retort, Woojin continues, “Surprised you Seoulites weren’t able to bribe yourselves to victory, so I’ll give you that.”

 

This seems to tick the other off a great deal, because he takes a step closer and lowers his voice, “Just because we’re from the city doesn’t mean we get everything handed to us. We have to work for it, we’re in the crew because we _earned_ it.”

 

Woojin lets out a sardonic laugh, “You think we don’t do the exact same thing? That just because we’re from the countryside that means we’re less talented? Sorry to break it to you, but you guys are no better than us, maybe even worse. We only retaliate because you guys start the fights. Says a lot about your actual confidence, doesn’t it?”

 

The blonde is breathing visibly heavier, eyes growing more and more enraged, a fiery red against the purple skies behind him—Woojin doesn’t think he’s ever seen eyes so expressive.

 

“We won the competition, fair and square, so get the fuck over yourself.” He finishes, and for a moment, he feels a strange throbbing at his chest. But the discomfort passes by quickly, and he’s walking back to the bus without sparing another glance back.

 

 

+ 

 

 

Waking up was never an easy feat for Jihoon, but the world seems more distorting than usual as he’s regaining his vision through his blurry eyes to a color that’s most definitely _not_ the color of his room. He blinks and blinks until everything comes into focus, but even then, nothing is really _in_ _focus_.

 

It’s only now that he realizes that he isn’t even in a bed as his back starts to hurt, and now he _knows_ that something is definitely wrong, because _his_ bed wouldn’t be giving him these kind of back pains. There are brown walls surrounding him, and a line of action figures encircling the room. On the walls are various posters of cartoons that he doesn’t know the names of and a full-body mirror on the opposite end of him.

 

That is _definitely_ not him.

 

Jihoon scoots back in panic. Is he dreaming? He has to be, there’s no way this could be real. In a second he’ll wake up and this will all be gone.

 

He waits. He waits and waits until he can’t remember what he’s waiting for because nothing seems to be changing, no matter how hard he’s shutting his eyes in hopes that he’ll see royal blue when he opens them again. But nothing is changing. He’s still staring at a sun-kissed, messy-brunette in the mirror and he doesn’t even _know_ who he is.

 

Wait.

 

Sun-kissed, messy brunette, somehow the description is familiar to him. It takes him a few minutes for it to fully sink in—this is the boy he’d seen two days ago at the dance festival, a member of South 51.

 

_What the hell is going on?_

 

“Hey, get up! You’re gonna be late for school!” He hears a young female voice call out from outside of the room, and the door slides open to reveal a short, long-haired girl looking at him, confused.

 

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” She frowns when Jihoon just continues to stare at her bewilderedly.

 

“I-I’m fine.” The voice that comes out is deeper than he expects that it surprises him a second time. He clears his throat a few times, testing his voice in “ah’s”. It somehow sounds new even though he knows he’s heard his voice before, how could he not remember it when the owner had all but shot him down the day he left for Busan?

 

And then it hits him again—oh God, he’s in _Busan_.

 

“Um, I think the late night gaming is finally starting to get to you, bro.” She says before walking away. For a moment, Jihoon thinks about flicking her on the forehead for getting sassy with him, but then he remembers this isn’t his body, and she isn’t his family.

 

 

 

This has to be a dream. It can’t be real, things like this don’t happen in real life, right?

   

+

 

 

Woojin strides into the kitchen with a ‘good morning’ to his mother after putting his sister, Yerim, into a (loving) headlock.

 

“Hey! I thought we were done with this! You didn’t do this yesterday!” Woojin lets her out of his grasp slowly.

 

“What do you mean? I do this all the time.”

 

Yerim rubs the top of her head irritably, “Yeah, but not _yesterday_. In fact, you were acting pretty weird yesterday.”

 

“How was I acting weird? Are you trying to insult me?”

 

“I mean I usually don’t miss an opportunity to do that,” The twelve-year old says pointedly, “but seriously. It’s like you were a different person. You didn’t remember your name and you were being super snobby, well, according to Daehwi.”

 

Woojin frowns. His memory of yesterday is quite hazy now that he thinks about it; he’s not even sure what day of the week it is, and he _always_ knows what day of the week it is. How could he not when he’s been counting down the days until summer wholeheartedly? 

 

“What day is it today?”

 

“The eleventh.”

 

“No like—“

 

“Wednesday?”

 

Whoa. The last he can remember is the events of Monday. But how is that possible? It’s not like he slept through the entirety of Tuesday, Yerim even said that he wasn’t being himself yesterday, so he had to have been awake. He _had_ to have lived through yesterday, but why can’t he remember any of it?

 

  

+

 

 

“You’re acting more like yourself today.” Daehwi comments as they’re eating lunch away from the rest of the students, underneath a tree behind the school where they’ve spent their lunches (save for the cold winter days) the entirety of their high school career.

 

Woojin throws his hands up exasperatedly, “Okay, is anyone actually gonna tell me what happened yesterday or is it a recurring theme to be super ambiguous today?”

 

“Your hair was tidier than usual, pushed up off of your forehead, it was weird. You also got lost on your way to school.” Youngmin elaborates, “And you didn’t remember your name. During attendance you didn’t answer when Mr. Han called on you.”

 

Woojin furrows his brows, he doesn’t recall any of this happening. Surely his friends were playing a joke on him. “You’re kidding, right? I don’t even have any memory of that happening. Yerim said the same thing this morning, are you all planning some sort of prank?”

 

“Of course not, they’re telling the truth.” Donghyun vouches from beside Youngmin. And now Woojin is even more confused because Donghyun is usually the only one he can trust in his friend group. “You were super snobby too, ignored us for a while. You’re lucky I stopped Daehwi before he could drop kick you.”

 

“Maybe I was just out of it yesterday.” Woojin rakes a hand through his hair, which is characteristically down and messy today. “I haven’t been sleeping well the past few days, and when I finally fell asleep last night, my dream was super weird.”

 

“Weird? Like how weird? Like perverted?”

 

“Oh my God, Daehwi.” Woojin shoots the boy a glare, “No, not like that. It kind of feels like I’m living someone else’s life. And it’s super vivid, it feels so _real_.”

 

Youngmin bites the inside of his cheek, forehead creasing in curiosity, “I’ve never dreamt about being in someone else’s body before. Does that even happen?”

 

“Well it’s been happening to me.” Woojin retorts, trying his hardest to recall the events of his dreams. Most of it is a blur though, only the feeling is left behind. It’s ridiculous how the mind plays games, obscuring dreams and leaving you with only bits and pieces, while storing the nightmares forever—like it knows exactly what you want, but refuses to give it to you. The only thing he remembers is recognizing the face of the person he had become and he also recalls the disturbance he felt along with it, though their face is still a bit of a blur in his mind now that he’s awake and he can’t remember who they were. How could the dream have felt so vivid yet his memory of it is so obscured?

 

“In any case, they’re just dreams, Woojin. Don’t stress about it, and sleep early!” Daehwi scolds, knowing very well how Woojin likes to stay up late playing games.

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Woojin waves a dismissive hand and finishes up his lunch, no longer wanting to dwell on the subject of his odd dreams and his supposed behavior yesterday. It’s not like he was going to have the same dream again, and soon he’ll forget it even happened.

 

 

 

 

“Twilight.” He hears Mr. Han say at the beginning of literature class, though he’s not really paying much attention. “This is the time when it is neither day nor night. It’s when the world blurs, where one might encounter something not human.”

 

Woojin can barely keep his eyes open in class that day. He’s woken up every five minutes as his chin slips off of his palm propping up his head. He feels something hit the back of his head and turns around to glare at Daehwi, who mouths ‘ _stay awake_!’.

 

When he turns back to his table, he’s flipping absentmindedly through his notebook, but when he reaches the most recent page, there’s writing in black pen scribbled on the empty page beside it.

 

_What the hell is happening?_

 

Instinctively, Woojin looks around him to see if anyone could have written something while he was sleeping. But the length between each desk is quite long, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone would have tried to do something while Mr. Han was teaching—it would have been too obvious. He’s left even more puzzled after rebuffing the fact. There’s nothing in the rest of the notebook, no other cryptic messages or anything written by the black ink. Who could have written it?

 

 

+

 

 

 

It happens again.

 

Woojin isn’t sure of a lot of things but the one thing he knows is that he’s never this beautiful in the morning—wait.

 

 

He wakes up in the same room from his dreams the previous night. The royal blue walls of the grand room come into sight and he’s greeted by the softness of the mattress and pillows underneath him. Why is he here again?

 

He hears a knock at the door, which flings open seconds after, revealing a raven-haired boy he vaguely remembers meeting in his last dream. “Hey, what’s the hold up? Are you skipping today or what?”

 

Woojin wonders how it’s possible for a dream to feel so life-like, he’s never remembered having experienced anything like this before. He realizes he must have zoned out while staring at the boy, because he’s now closer and waving his hands in front of his face.

 

“Hello, earth to Jihoon?”

 

_Jihoon._

 

Slowly the memories of his last dream start to flood back, but it’s almost so fast that his head starts to hurt. He clutches at it but tries not to make it too obvious in front of the other boy.

 

“W-what?”

 

“You skipped the other day too, don’t make it a habit.” He says in a way that Woojin thinks is jokingly, “But you know Seongwoo will have our heads if we don’t show up to practice today.” Wait, Seongwoo, where has he heard that name before? Seongwoo. Seongwoo. Ong Seongwoo. Ong Seongwoo? As in Echo’s captain Ong Seongwoo? “The guy has been a nightmare ever since we lost to those South 51 brats, it’s probably not a good idea to piss him off.”

 

Realization dawns on him for what he thinks is the second time, as he looks across his room into a mirror and sees the blonde hair and his face starts to become recognizable. It’s the Echo kid. He’s living as the Echo kid. But why? And how? How is his mind able to construct his daily life so vividly when Woojin hasn’t even been to any of these places or seen any of the people around him before?

 

He doesn’t even have time to comprehend all of it because the boy is dragging him out of bed and pushing him into the closet. “You better be out in 10 or you’re walking to school!”

 

As he’s nudged into the passenger’s seat of Jihoon’s friend’s car, he contemplates the situation. Could this be real? It isn’t the most plausible explanation, but everything is starting to feel scarily realistic that dreaming might not be the right interpretation. It’s all so confusing that Woojin doesn’t know what to think, but it would probably be a smart idea to start, because suddenly he’s walking into a school he has no idea how to navigate his way through and it’s only now that he realizes that he’s in complete control of what’s happening right now.

 

Could he really have switched bodies with Jihoon?

 

The last time he was here in his dream (that maybe wasn’t actually even a dream) he had slept in and got yelled at by his (Jihoon’s) best friend over the phone. He tries to check Jihoon’s phone but it’s locked, and Woojin thinks that trying to navigate the blonde’s mind to figure out the pattern would be pretty difficult. He was, after all, annoying in every sense of the word—it’s no doubt his password would be unnecessarily intricate too.

 

He looks up and takes in the sight of the large building he had just walked into. This is a _school_? It’s so extravagant that Woojin feels like he’s in a bad episode of _The Heirs_ , not that any of them were objectively _good_ , for that matter.

 

Woojin isn’t even sure why he’d let Jihoon’s friend take him to school because he hasn’t a clue when or where any of Jihoon’s classes are. “Hey, Jihoon! Donghan!”

 

Across the hall is a tall brunette walking up to him and Jihoon’s friend, whose name he figures to be Donghan. And then he starts to freak out because what is his relationship with this guy? Are they friends? Should he know his name?

 

“Heeey.” He drawls out with uncertainty, hoping that he won’t have to keep playing this name game for the rest of the day. He had just learned Jihoon’s best friend’s name like two seconds ago.

 

“Did you guys finish your monologues for theater?” What. Theater? Oh God, was he expected to go to theater class and somehow blend in, despite knowing practically nothing about whatever it was they did? Fuck. _Monologue_?

 

“Yep.” Donghan says proudly, “Ms. Ahn is gonna be blown away.”

 

The brunette smiles at Donghan and turns to Jihoon. Woojin notices the change in tone as he talks to him, but doesn’t think it’s much to dwell on. “What about you, Jihoon?”

 

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. What is he supposed to say? He doesn’t even know if Jihoon had finished, he doesn’t seem like the type to care about school work. But then again, if he was in theater, he had to have chosen it for a reason. But there’s no way in hell Woojin is going to recite a monologue in front of a bunch of city theater kids. He can only imagine the amount of ego in that room, maybe it would be even worse that Echo. “I—uh, I did but I forgot it.”

 

“Didn’t you write it on your phone?” Donghan points out. Woojin takes a glance at the phone in his hand, which he still had yet to unlock.

 

“Nope! No I uh, I… hand wrote it?”

 

Donghan snorts, “Why did you hand write it?”

 

Woojin furrows his brows, doing his best (okay, realistically this is the worst he could be doing, but details) to come up with a valid excuse. “I.. like to be old school?”

 

“Oh. Well, It’s a good thing you’re not performing today hey?” The brunette smiles. patting him on the shoulder and Woojin heaves a sigh of relief. That kind of public speaking sounds like a nightmare, only now it seems like he wouldn’t be able to wake up from this.

 

“Lucky. I didn’t get in much practice last night because I knocked out after practice.”

 

“Oh right, we have another practice today.” The brunette snaps his fingers.

 

“You’re in Echo?” Woojin says without thinking, and the looks on both of their faces would be humorous if he was actually joking, but he wasn’t. It probably wasn’t the best idea to say that out loud though.

 

“Ouch. Nice to know I’m practically invisible to you.” He clutches at his heart and Donghan laughs, squeezing his shoulder.

 

“It’s okay, Samuel. Jihoon is an asshole to everyone.”

  

 

+

  

 

 

“You don’t happen to know my phone password, do you?”

 

Daehwi looks at him like he’s grown another head, and though it’s technically true, Jihoon isn’t going to get anywhere with communicating with Woojin about the whole switching ordeal by tiptoeing around every aspect of Woojin’s life so as to not draw attention to himself. He has to throw away his shame eventually, and Daehwi seems to be sweet—definitely cute—maybe he could be of help. “You get dumber every day, you know that?”

 

Well, that seems to be extremely telling of Woojin’s relationship with his best friend.

 

“I’ve been feeling under the weather lately, my memory is super bad.” Jihoon says unintelligibly.

 

Daehwi sighs, and then leans over to enter the pattern on his phone, “It’s a D, remember? D for Daehwi.”

 

Jihoon raises an eyebrow, “He—I made my password about you?”

 

“If that’s the explanation we’re going with then sure.”

 

If there’s one thing Jihoon knows, is that not even best friends implement each other into their passwords. He sits on the thought amusedly, as he watches Daehwi smile gush on about a video he’s watching.

 

Jihoon searches through Woojin’s phone, and decides to send himself a message to save Woojin’s number for later, so that he can discuss the mess that had somehow gotten themselves into when they switch back. This is the second time they’ve switched, so Jihoon naturally assumes that it happens every second day. The only thing is, he doesn’t know how it even started in the first place, and why it had to be them of all people. All he knows is that he needs to find the answer soon, because who knows what kind of disaster Woojin is cooking up on his side of the country.

 

Jihoon is already lamenting at the thought of Woojin being so helpless, quite possibly ruining his reputation as we speak.

 

 

+

 

  

The thing is, Woojin doesn’t _mean_ to pry—hell, he really rather wouldn’t. But it’s kind of inevitable, being that he’s somehow in Jihoon’s body and in his house and _living_ his life. If anyone were to catch on, he’s not sure how he’d get himself out of that without eventually ending up on the hit list of the very person he’s inhabited. He needs to keep up the ruse that everything is normal, and maybe if he’s done a good job by the end of the week, he’ll be back in his own body one morning, and then the morning after that, and he’ll just continue to be himself and not Jihoon, right?

 

When he gets home from Echo practice (he’s surprised he made it out of their alive, he’s just lucky he’s quick to pick up on choreography) he’s rummaging through Jihoon’s belongings in an attempt to learn as much as he can about Jihoon and how he should be acting and the people he needs to remember.

 

Trying to figure our Jihoon’s life turns out to be more of a challenge than Woojin expects. They’re so remarkably different; Jihoon lives in wealth and comfort, while Woojin has to work for everything. He has to put up this snobby pretense with the people at school because the weird looks he had gotten today when he was trying to be polite indicated that Jihoon doesn’t seem to be that kind of person.

 

At first, Woojin wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He can tell just from the one Echo practice that he attended that their work ethics were no joke. He thought that maybe, the high pressure could have gotten to him and made him lash out like that. But the more he’d interacted with people as Jihoon the more he’d thrown the reluctance away. Wealthy city kids would always be condescending brats, and Woojin can’t wait until this absurd ordeal ends.

 

In the end, he still doesn’t manage to get Jihoon’s phone unlocked, but he can see a bunch of notifications on lock screen.

 

Woojin feels terribly lonely—a day as Jihoon’s feels never-ending, like the day has purposely gotten longer as to spite him. He figures that there’s a downside to knowing Daehwi’s phone number by heart—he has to hold back the urge to call his best friend while he’s in Jihoon’s body. Though Jihoon has his own friends that Woojin could technically also befriend while he’s living as Jihoon, Woojin isn’t sure that would be a good idea. Eventually, something would come up where he’d have to recall something he has no memory of, and he doesn’t want to have to put himself in that situation. He figures it’s better to get through the switch days as painfully and as smoothly as possible. 

 

After all, it couldn’t be that long until they were back in their own bodies. 

 

+

  

 

“I can’t believe you didn’t even open my messages yesterday. I would have been less hurt if you had left me on read but you just ignored them completely! And don’t tell me you didn’t see them, you’re always on your phone.” Donghan accuses grouchily on their way to school.

 

“Sorry, I was a little off yesterday.” Jihoon remarks, hoping that when he gets to school, things wouldn’t be too different. He just wishes Woojin didn’t manage to fuck things up yesterday.

 

Donghan snorts, “Yeah, no kidding. You made me walk you to every class and you pretended not to know Samuel. Also you were stuttering a lot.”

 

Oh God, what exactly had Woojin done yesterday?

 

At least Jihoon had made an effort to seem normal yesterday, Woojin didn’t seem to have an inkling of what to do. He’s just thankful he hadn’t received any berating messages from Seongwoo when he checked his phone this morning. Well, at least Woojin was adequate in _one_ thing.

 

“Anyways, are you ready for your monologue today?”

 

Jihoon’s eyes widen, “Crap.”

 

Donghan throws him a look, “What, did you forget? We reminded you yesterday.”

 

Hastily, he pulls up his notes on his phone and reads over his prepared monologue, unable to hear himself in his thoughts over the loud beating of his heart.

 

Donghan sighs beside him, “You are an entire mess, Park Jihoon.”

 

 

 

Thankfully, Jihoon manages to get through his monologue in theater quite smoothly, though it’s not as satisfying as it would have been if he actually had time to practice it yesterday. But he brushes it off because it’s over and done with and gets through the rest of the school day less painfully.

 

Immediately upon getting home, he tries to call Woojin. It takes him three calls to finally pick up, “ _Hello_?”

 

“We need to talk.”

 

The line goes quiet for a while, and then Woojin is able to grasp the situation, quicker than he would have expected him to, which comes as a surprise to him. “ _Jihoon_?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Jihoon can hear Daehwi’s voice getting fainter in the background, “ _Fuck, I have no idea what’s going on right now_.”

 

“Me neither, dude. What the hell happened that day?” The last thing he remembers happening before the switch is having that argument with Woojin at the Hangang Park the day Woojin had left Seoul. “Do you think this is some kind of Freaky Friday type of shit?”

 

“ _What’s Freaky Friday_?”

 

“Oh my God, you’re kidding me.” For a beat, Jihoon contemplates chiding Woojin on not knowing one of his favorite childhood movies, but then decides against it. “Wait, that’s not the point. The point is, it was a body switching movie, just like what’s happening to us right now.”

 

_“How did they switch?”_

 

Jihoon tells him the details of the film from off the top of his head, “They were always fighting and then got into an argument in a Chinese restaurant and after reading the fortunes from the fortune cookies, they switched the next morning.”

 

Woojin is quiet for a while, “But we didn’t go to a Chinese restaurant.”

 

Jihoon rolls his eyes, slowly losing patience, “I know, idiot. It must have happened when we were arguing in the park that day.”

 

“ _But what triggered it? What’s the fortune cookie in our case?”_

 

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

 

“ _So how do we get out of this?_ Can _we get out of it_?”

 

 Jihoon sighs, resting his cheek on the palm of his hand. “I’m not sure. I’ll go do some research in the meantime.”

 

“ _You think there’s gonna be an explanation online?”_

 

“If it happened to us it could have happened to other people! Look, do you wanna get out of this or not?”

 

“ _Alright, alright. Tell me if you find anything_.”

 

“And _you_ should start practicing being a better me.”

 

He hears Woojin scoff, “ _I don’t think there’s a getting better for people like you_.”

 

Jihoon groans and ends the call. If the solution to this whole thing was to stop hating each other, then boy, were they in for the most complicated endeavor of their lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _ubi concordia, ibi victoria_ — where there is harmony, there is victory

 

 

 

 

 

| _ubi concordia, ibi victoria_

 

 

 

It takes three weeks for Jihoon to start getting used to his life as Woojin, and two more for him to settle into the customs of his family. He manages to fall into a routine by the time the sixth week rolls around, and through practice he’s able to get through the switch days in an easy fashion (well, as easy as body swapping gets.) For the whole month that the switching goes on, Woojin and Jihoon keep in contact with each other, though it’s hard to relay their frustrations completely through their only form of communication, which is texting. Recently, Woojin prefers to speak to Jihoon about the previous day’s events through call because his anger gets across more distinctly this way.

 

“What the fuck.” He says without a hello, and Jihoon has the nerve to sound offended.

 

 _“What did I do_?”

 

“What did you _do_? You flirted with _Daehwi_! In _my_ body!” Woojin screeches into the phone, scarred at the mental image of him coming onto Daehwi.

 

 _“He’s cute_.” Jihoon returns nonchalantly, as if it’s a good enough excuse to justify his actions. Yes, Daehwi is cute. Puppies are also cute, but you don’t _flirt_ with puppies.

 

“Oh my God.” Is all Woojin can muster.

 

Jihoon continues, almost amused, “ _At least he was until he bit me.”_

 

Woojin lifts up his arm to look at the mark he’d found on his arm before, though he hadn’t known where it came from. “Is that where I got this bite mark?!” His face falls into his hands, kicking at his blanket in frustration. “Ugh. Anyways, don't you think we should lay down some ground rules?”

 

“ _It’s been a month and you’re deciding to implement rules_ now?”

 

“I just feel weirded out that you have complete control of my body when I’m not there. Like, have you..“

 

“ _What_?” Jihoon shrieks on the other side of the line, catching onto his implication rather quickly, “ _No!_ ”

 

“Okay, okay. But rule number one, no showering when we’re switching.”

 

 _“I’m not agreeing to that.”_ Jihoon says stubbornly, _“You are not gonna go out of the house in my body without showering.”_

 

“Um, you’re allowing me.. to shower you?”

 

“ _God, you’re really terrible at phrasing things you know?”_

 

“Look, I just don’t need you seeing any more of my body than you need to.” Woojin clarifies.

 

He hears Jihoon snort, “ _Just sounds like a lack of confidence to me_.”

 

Woojin sneers, and though it’s not visible to Jihoon he’s sure that he can here the scorn in his voice, “I’ll have you know I look amazing without a shirt on. And I don’t think you’d really enjoy the fact that I’d have to showering in your body, completely naked.”

 

“… _Fine, showering the night before it is.”_

 

 

+

 

 

 

Another time they’re on the phone, it’s Jihoon who's mad at him.

 

_“Do you have to go screaming like a pterodactyl everywhere? Donghan is gonna disown me one day because of you.”_

 

“It’s called karma, dear Jihoon.”       

 

“ _What did I do to deserve karma?!”_

 

“You act like you don’t try to mess things up for me when you’re in my body!”

 

_“I’ve barely done anything!”_

 

“ _Barely_? How about you stop trying to make Daehwi think I’m in _love_ with him!”

 

“ _You are, aren’t you?”_ It sounds more like a statement rather than a question, like he’d even know anything about them. He’s never been with the two of them in the same place at the same time, long enough for him to deduct anything.

 

Woojin makes a strangled noise at that, “No!”

 

Jihoon snickers, clearly not convinced, “ _I would be, he’s adorable_.”

 

Woojin winces, it’s getting harder and harder for him to act normal around Daehwi when he doesn't know what kind of things Jihoon’s has been saying to him. “That’s disgusting.”

 

“ _Then why is he the reason your password pattern is a D_?”

 

“Because I lost a bet!”

 

 _“Shouldn’t we like, meet up or something to try and figure this thing out?”_ Jihoon suggests, changing the subject.

 

It’s no doubt that meeting up would help the situation much more than now, being that they’re miles away from each other. The switching had happened after they met in person the first time, so maybe being in the same place again would somehow fix it.

 

“Wait, why would I meet you? What if you’re a catfisher?”

 

The other end of the line is silent for a long while. “ _What. Oh my God, Woojin. We literally swap bodies, you know what I look like and who I am, what the fuck_?”

 

“Oh.” The constant (literal) out-of-body experiences must be getting to him. That’s it. “Right.”

  

 

+

  

 

Jihoon wonders if he could confide in anyone about the bizarreness of the entire thing, but who would even believe him? Daehwi? Youngmin? Donghyun? If he’s learned anything from the last few switches, is that Woojin doesn’t seem to have much credibility within his friend group. Of course he’d find every way possible to be an impediment to Jihoon’s pursuit out of this freakish situation.

 

Though he had been growing accustomed to living as Woojin, he still wanted out of it as soon as possible. He couldn’t be living as Woojin every second of day of his life _forever_ , he has his _own_ life to live, his own dreams to pursue. And he figures that Woojin does too. He’s never actually seen Woojin dance on his own, but judging by the comments he’s been given from the rest of his crew, it seems that he’s one of the best on his team. Maybe even good enough to take over the crew one day. Maybe if he paid enough attention, he would have known just how good everyone claims Woojin to be.

 

Jihoon likes to think he’s pretty self-aware about how self-centered he may come off as; and he can admit that he often thinks about himself more than he does about others. But he also doesn’t see much wrong with that. He’s _supposed_ to be living for himself, how else would he survive reality? If he falls short of expectations, then people will give up hope for him. He wants to prove himself; he wants to show everyone who ever thought that he couldn’t handle something so demanding as acting and show business that he could be exactly who they thought he couldn’t and _better_. He wants to show his dad that he’s not wasting away his life with this indefinite path of his, because he’s _good_ at it and he’s going to continue to work until the road ahead of him is nothing but clear skies.

 

Stubbornness was always his second nature; he would never give up something he wanted without a fight. And if he could finally convince his dad that acting is the path for him, then maybe he would eventually come around and help him work towards it. His family’s network has always been strong, he has the biggest opportunity right in front of him, and if he wants to take advantage of it then he has to prove to his dad that sending him to a Performing Arts school was a decision he wouldn’t regret. And maybe then would his dad finally be proud of him.

  

 

+

  

 

June somehow sneaks up on them and goes faster than it comes, and they still have yet to do anything to stop the switching. Woojin is just glad he was able to graduate—at least Jihoon knew what he was doing when it came to school.

 

Finishing high school isn’t the thing Woojin is most excited about, though. The nearing of July also means the nearing of dance camp. And that means that they’re going to spend the entirety of the summer at a camp ground in Seoul, attending various dance workshops and building teamwork. It also means that they’ll be seeing Echo, and though that itself is dreadful thought, it means that he’d be able to see Jihoon and they could try to figure out how to finally end the switching, once and for all. And monitoring each other’s actions would be infinitely easier in the same vicinity.

 

Woojin hugs his mom and Yerim goodbye before hopping onto the bus to go away to camp for the next two months. He’s stuck with Daehwi as a seatmate as per usual, though Daehwi keeps throwing him weird looks, like he’s just waiting for him to throw out some corny pickup line.

 

“Stop looking at me like that.”

 

Daehwi puffs out his cheeks, “I was just wondering why you weren’t using any pickup lines on me today.”

 

Woojin sighs heavily, muttering under his breath, “That wasn't me.”

 

“What?” Daehwi leans closer, “What do you mean?”

 

He waves an arm to shoo Daehwi away, leaning onto the window and closing his eyes. “Nothing.”

 

 

When their bus arrives, there’s already a whole influx of people from various dance teams from across the country roaming the camp grounds. Just seeing the entire place has Woojin feeling giddy, excited about getting to meet idols and some well-renowned choreographers and getting to learn from them. But Woojin knows that they aren’t just here to have fun—it isn’t just a dance camp, it’s the 2017 Dance Camp Championship. At the end of the summer, they’d have to compete with the rest of the crews to earn the title, and earn the chance to represent South Korea in the World Dance Festival. This is a huge deal to them, and though the summer would come with a lot of fun, it’s also going to come with hours of hard work. It’s nothing Woojin can’t handle, though. He’s ready for whatever the summer has in store for him.

 

The tension is at an all-time high when they come face to face with Echo on their way to their cabin. Their relationship had only gotten worse after South 51 beat out Echo at nationals—it would be highly unlikely for the bad blood between them to fizzle out over the duration of the summer. He figures the fact that they would have to deal with their pretentious asses is going to be the most bothersome part of the summer.

 

Behind Seongwoo, Woojin meets eyes with Jihoon. He doesn’t know how to feel about seeing him for the first time after Nationals. And even though they had been switching bodies for over a month, it’s different when he’s looking right at him. He looks around and spots Donghan and Samuel, who probably don’t recognize him as he does them.

 

“Guess it’s hard for you to get cocky now that you lost to us, huh?” Daniel provokes, standing about a few centimeters taller than Seongwoo, though with his broad build he manages to look even bigger. Seongwoo doesn’t falter under Daniel’s smirk, and counters it with his own.

 

“I don’t think you should be getting too cocky either.” Seongwoo pokes at Daniel’s chest, who steps back in surprise. “Winning Nationals doesn’t guarantee you’ll beat us at the end of camp. I think you and your little crew need to watch out, because when you see what we have in store for the competition, you’re gonna wish you never came.”

 

“May the best crew win.”

 

Seongwoo throws Daniel a sardonic smile, then turns to the rest of his crew, “Come on guys, let’s settle into our villa.”

 

Youngmin snorts, “They’re really calling their cabin a _villa_?”

 

Daehwi is turned away from the rest of their group, pointing somewhere, “Uh, I don’t think it’s just a _cabin_.”

 

They all turn to look to where Echo is headed—apparently, using the cabins provided by the camp wasn’t a rule, because there they are, the Seoulites in all their wealthy glory, walking towards a two story, modern glass villa.

 

Donghyun sighs, “I hate rich people.”

 

“Don’t worry, guys.” Daniel puts his arms around Donghyun and Youngmin, turning into the rest of the group. “We’ll get to experience the true joy of camp, the kind of joy that _they_ will never understand.”

 

Sohee squeals in excitement, “That means campfires and songs and scary stories and s’mores!”

                   

“Don’t forget pranks.” Sojung adds with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Woojin was always a little intimidated by her.

 

“Alright, first things first. Let’s settle in before the opening ceremony, yeah.” The group huddles and shouts their chant, throwing their arms up in the air enthusiastically before rushing towards their cabin.

 

It’s definitely not as luxurious as Echo’s living conditions, but it’s simple and cozy. The main part of the small lodge is long spacious room, with a few couches on the further end, and a small kitchen near the door with a long table beside it. The doors opposite of the couches are two bathrooms, and to the right of those are three separate rooms, lined with bunk beds. Daehwi, Woojin, Donghyun and Youngmin occupy one of the four-bed room, the girls take the other four-bed room, and Daniel stays in the five-bed room with the rest of the boys, claiming that the captain automatically received single bed rights.

 

After settling in, Daniel calls a meeting in the main room. The crew sprawl out over the couches and the carpet, where some of them had laid down their sleeping bags for comfort. Donghyun is in the kitchen, making himself a cup of coffee. “Okay, I received our itineraries from Soonyoung this morning, we don’t officially start activities until tomorrow morning so today is a free day to enjoy the camp grounds.” Daniel passes around the itineraries, running them through tomorrow’s schedule roughly.

 

“The opening ceremony is at 5 so wherever you decide to spend your free time today, make sure you’re back here before 5, and we’ll walk to the main building together.” With a clap and a bright smile, Daniel concludes the meeting, “That’s all I have to say so go have some fun!”

 

The group disperses to explore the rest of the place. Some pull out their swim suits and head towards the beach, while others decide to visit the small outlet on the outskirts of the camp grounds. Woojin follows Daehwi, Youngmin and Donghyun across the field, towards the main road where the outlet is. As they’re walking down the sidewalk, Woojin sees Jihoon coming up towards them. “I need to talk to you.”

 

His friends throw him puzzled looks. He hears Youngmin whisper to Donghyun, “ _Isn’t he from Echo?”_

 

Woojin chuckles awkwardly before turning to Jihoon and lowering his voice, “Does it have to be _now_?”

 

“Well I don’t see what other free time we’re gonna get so come on!” Jihoon doesn’t even give Woojin a chance to decline because he’s grabbing his arm and pulling him away from his friends.

 

“Woojin, be careful.” Daehwi whisper-yells as he’s being pulled away, “You’re fraternizing with an Echo kid!”

 

Youngmin follows it up with a much louder, “Don’t sleep with the enemy!”

 

Woojin shrieks in horror.

 

 

 

A while later, Jihoon has Woojin seated in a café.

 

“So for what reason did you feel the need to drag me here against my will?” Woojin starts, disgruntled. He’d really rather be walking around with his friends than be seen hanging out with his sworn enemy. If he knew Echo, they would definitely turn the sight into some sort of twisted rumor about him luring Jihoon away from their team and seducing him so that he’d ruin their chances of perfecting their performance piece for the championships. Or maybe he’s just spent too much time watching movies with Daehwi.

 

“Well we need to talk about this switching thing obviously.” For a second, Woojin had almost forgotten that it was even a thing. His mind had completely filtered it out after seeing thinking about all of the activities they would be getting to do. And then he realizes that if he’s in his own body today, then that would mean tomorrow, he’d be in Jihoon’s, and Jihoon would be in his.

 

On the first day of camp, too. Fan-fucking-tastic.

 

Woojin lets out a delayed strained noise, “We’re gonna switch tomorrow.”

 

“Exactly. And it’s gonna be kind of hard to do teamwork building when you’re not with your team.” Jihoon clarifies further. Woojin dreads the thought of having to spend an entire day with Echo, and if they’re not able to figure out how to switch back soon, he’d be doing it for the rest of the summer.

 

“So what do we do? We’re not even sure how we’re supposed to switch back, or how it even happened in the first place.”

 

Jihoon sits on the thought, pursing his lips in concentration, “We need to find time to go back to Hangang Park, where that statue was. I think it might be the reason we switched.”

 

“Statue?” Woojin tilts his head in confusion, his memory isn’t very good, so he can’t recall the statue that Jihoon is talking about.

 

“We argued in front of a statue that day, if my memory serves correctly.”

 

“How do you even remember that kind of detail?” Woojin asks, almost in awe. He could barely even remember what he ate for breakfast this morning.

 

Jihoon shrugs, sipping on his caramel macchiato. Woojin isn’t sure why he’d even bothered to remember the drink he had ordered, “I remember a lot of useless things.” Woojin definitely knows the feeling. “Well I guess it isn’t that useless anymore.”

 

Woojin nods slowly, “So when do we go?”

 

“We could try tomorrow? Maybe we have to be in each other’s bodies when we’re trying to switch back.” Jihoon suggests.

 

Woojin frowns, tomorrow is going to be the first day of activities, and he doubts they’d even have the time to hail a cab down to Hangang Park in the middle of all of their schedules. “We’ll basically have no time the entire day.”

 

“We could go at 11.”

 

That merits an eyebrow raise—Woojin had never been out past 11. Sure, he’d get let out of practice near that time plenty of times, but he’s always went straight home after. “You don’t think we’d get into trouble?”

 

“Why, a little rebelling is too much for a weakling like you?” Jihoon smirks haughtily, successfully provoking Woojin’s competitiveness.

 

“No.” He mumbles, and then after a few moments of shifting underneath Jihoon’s taunting look, caves in. “Fine, we’ll go after 11, after the nightly check in. But you can’t tell any of your crew members, even Donghan.”

 

Jihoon nods, “Okay, 11:30 it is then.”

 

 

+

  

 

 

“Hi everyone, Welcome to Camp Spirit!”

 

Applause rings throughout the gymnasium as the owner of the camp, Kwon Boa, greets the room full of dancers.

 

“Oh my God, it’s Boa. Guys, it’s Boa!” Daehwi squeals enthusiastically, “She’s amazing!”

 

“I would like you all to give a big warm welcome to your 2017 Spirit instructors!”

 

They watch on as the group of instructors enter the stage through various forms of dance—some of them backflip and tumble their way to the front, while a few enter through grand allegros and pique turn sequences. The instructors perform a small routine to get the crowd hyped up, and soon they have everyone jumping along with them.

 

“Woo!” Daehwi cheers loudly at the end of their performance, along with the rest of the crowd. For a moment it seems like they’re all unified, until Boa brings up what Woojin has heard to be one of the most important parts for this camp. “And now, as you all know, we have a very important tradition here at Camp Spirit. This here, is the spirit stick passed down to me from the very person who had started this dance camp years ago, Park Seungah. It embodies the heart and soul of dance, and it brings the luck of the dance spirits.”

 

“Dude, I don’t even believe in superstitions but for some reason, that really does look like a very important stick to me.” Youngmin says, earning a snicker from Woojin and Donghyun.

 

“Every week, each group will get to experience the powerful aura of the spirit stick.” Boa continues, “And the winners of last year’s championships will have the honors of having it first. Echo, come on up here!”

 

The rest of the crowd cheers, while South 51 look around awkwardly and clap half-heartedly.

 

“And just a warning; You lose the stick, and you _will_ face the wrath of the dance Gods.”

 

“Uh, this suddenly sounds less appealing.” Youngmin judges, face contorting dubiously.

 

Woojin shrugs, “We should probably still try to keep it safe though, I heard that last year, some dude lost the stick and on the day before the competition, he had sprained his ankle really badly.”

 

“God, that must have sucked.” Sohee frowns.

 

“Don’t worry, we’ll protect it with our lives.” Donghyun pipes up.  

 

“Do you think we really need to rely on that stick to win this thing?” Sojung asks, genuinely curious.

 

“I think we can’t underestimate anyone here, especially now that Echo has even more of a motive to win and defend their title at these championships. As long as we avoid them, they won’t be able to play dirty.” Daniel stresses, they couldn’t be bothered to waste time on this petty rivalry, winning this competition meant they could go onto bigger things. Woojin has always dreamed of competing at the World Dance Festival, and if that stupid superstition stick is gonna help them in any way, then so be it, he’ll be on his best watch for those Seoul snakes.

 

 

+

  

 

“Okay, guys. We have a title to defend.” Seongwoo gathers them after they obtain the spirt stick. “We won this championship last year and got to go to the World Dance Festival, and this year we’re gonna do it again. We’re not gonna let South 51 get in our way, you hear me?”

 

The rest of the group cheers in agreement.

 

Seongwoo puts a hand into the middle of the group and everyone follows after, “E-C-H-O!”

 

“Let the world hear our echo!”

 

When they get back to the villa after dinner, the rest of the night is spent texting Woojin Echo’s itinerary and in turn, Woojin running him briefly through South 51’s. They’re not too sure how they’re going to go about in managing group activities that aren’t with their own teams, but Jihoon has been to a couple of South 51’s practices as Woojin, and so has Woojin with Echo, so he thinks that it won’t be all too unfamiliar for them. They’d essentially be learning the same things and going through the same activities anyways, just at different times. If they could get through this smoothly, and then successfully sneak out to the park to switch back, then all would be good, and they would be out of each other’s lives before they know it.

 

That’s what he wants, Jihoon tells himself. He says it in his head over and over until he can’t remember why he needs to.

 

 

 

 

In the morning, he’s woken up as he’s falling onto the floor. The thing about being a restless and fidgety sleeper is that when you’re in a bed as small as this one, it’s a little complicated to keep yourself on it. His bed had been large when he had fallen asleep, but now he’s in Woojin’s room, on his narrow bed, in a dingy cabin and too many people sharing the room than he’s comfortable with.

 

Though he had managed to grow close to Daehwi, he still felt a bit awkward around Youngmin and Donghyun. He’d been able to catch onto Woojin’s dynamic with Daehwi quite easily, and fell into it naturally. But even now, he can’t really tell what kind of relationship he’s supposed to have with his other two friends. The two of them were a year older than Woojin and Daehwi, it could be the age gap, but then again, it’s not even that big of a difference. Jihoon can’t figure out why it’s so hard for him to warm up to Youngmin and Donghyun—he’s usually great at making friends. At least, that’s what he tells himself. Granted, he could never be too sure about the legitimacy of the friendships he has with the people that he’s around. In places like this, society is a battlefield, and the people you choose to hang out with could be the key to surviving the hellhole that was high school. That’s why in the end, the only people he could count on for sure were Donghan and Samuel.

 

Jihoon manages to keep up with the rest of South 51 rather smoothly as their schedule goes by, and no one seems to catch onto any kind of change. At times he finds himself almost following Echo as they cross paths, and it’s extremely weird seeing his own body pass by him because this is the first time he’s actually been in the same place as Woojin when they’re switching. 

 

The first day of switching ends up going as smoothly as he hoped it would, and soon he’s resting on the couch in South 51’s small lodge, watching the clock as the others saunter into their rooms, and the lights go off. He goes into his own room just for show, and by 11:30, the rest of Woojin’s roommates are sleeping away.

 

As quietly as he can, he slips out of the room and out of the lodge, towards Echo’s villa. Woojin in Jihoon’s body is already loitering outside of the beach house. When he catches a glimpse of Jihoon (himself), he jogs up to him with a weird look. “What?”

 

“It’s just weird, looking at myself.”

 

“Yeah.” Jihoon agrees, feeling more and more weirded out at the fact that he’s speaking to his own face. “Anyways, let’s hurry up before anyone wakes up and realizes one of us is gone.”

 

They hail a cab and make their way to Hangang Park, where there are still a few people strolling outside during the late night. It takes them a bit of wandering around before Jihoon can actually remember where the statue is, and thanks to the bright lights surrounding the park, he’s able to make it out. They stand in front of the statue, examining it for a while. “Um, so now what?”

 

“I don’t know? Should we.. talk to it?”

 

“I mean, it’s the least crazy thing we could do at this point.” Woojin points out.

 

The statue is of an old man, who looks sort of angry. “Um, hi?”

 

Woojin snorts and Jihoon hits in on the arm. The brunette clears his throat, “Right, uh, we were here like a month ago and we somehow ended up switching bodies. If this was your doing it’d be great if you could um, switch us back? Like as soon as possible?”

 

They stand in silence for a while, staring at the statue. Jihoon sighs after a while, “We’re talking to a fucking statue.”

 

“Well what else are we supposed to do?!” Woojin groans exasperatedly.

 

“I’m pretty sure it’s because we still hate each other. If we switched after arguing, it makes sense that we’d only be able to switch back when that stops being the case.”

 

Woojin snaps his head towards him, “You couldn’t have deducted that _before_ we came here in the dead of the night?”

 

“I just wanted to see it if would work!” Jihoon shouts back defensively.

 

“Well if that’s the case, we clearly won’t be getting anywhere with this any time soon.”

 

Jihoon sighs, “Can we stop arguing? It’s weird yelling at myself.”

 

“Oh, because Mr. Perfect never makes mistakes, right?”

 

He shoots Woojin a glare, “How about you stop twisting my words?”

 

“How about you stop _being_ twisted?” Woojin snarls.

 

A heat rushes up his neck; he closes his eyes and inhales deeply, “You barely even know me.”

 

“I’ve sort of gotten a feel of how you treat people and how you hold yourself so yeah, I think I can say I know you enough to say that.”  

 

“You don’t know the first thing about me!” Jihoon shouts, “You have no idea how I grew up or what’s important to me. You’re only seeing what you want to see just so you can reinforce your stupid city kid stereotypes.”

 

“I don’t need to reinforce them, it’s clear that the only person you care about is yourself.” Woojin shoots back, tone growing louder.

 

“And what’s so bad about that? Who else am I supposed to be living for? The world isn’t all fun and games, Woojin. It’s harsh, it’s cutthroat. Everyone is just fighting to make a living and if I don’t take care of myself, then who _will_?”

 

“Have you forgotten about the people around you? You have Donghan and Samuel. They clearly care about you and they seem to know how much acting means to you. But do you know about their dreams? About they want to do and where they want to go? Have you ever sat down for a second to listen to them instead of going on about yourself for hours? They work to help you achieve your dreams, but here you are, accepting without giving back. Just face it, you’re selfish, Jihoon.”

 

Jihoon balls his hands into fists, accusation dripping from his voice, “You need to stop acting like you’re some kind of expert at reading people. You can act you like you know me—like you can read me like a book but you never will, you’ll never know what I’ve gone through and why I’m who I am. And there’s nothing wrong with who I am, so back the fuck off and while you’re at it, how about you fix _your_ shallow thinking? Not everything is black and white, stop being an old fashioned asshole and try to _understand_ someone before attacking them. Coins aren’t one sided.”

 

And with that, he walks away, hails his own cab, and leaves.

 

His conscience isn’t that shitty; he texts Woojin where he should tell the cab driver where to go before shutting his phone off and shoving it into his pocket, brooding the entire ride back. When he reaches South 51’s lodge, he comes face to face with Daehwi sitting in the kitchen. Daehwi stands up immediately upon seeing him. “Where did you go? Are you okay?”

 

Jihoon feels bad for making Daehwi worry, but he didn’t think he’d wake up and even realize he was gone. “Yeah, I just went for a walk, I’m fine.” He leaves it at that and walks back into their room, tossing and turning for hours until he finally stops his angry thoughts enough for him to fall asleep.

 

 

+ 

 

 

When Jihoon wakes up in his own room in the villa, he’s immensely relieved. Half because he misses being in his own body, and half because he’s glad Woojin was able to make it back last night. But mostly because he misses being himself. With the way Woojin ridiculed him last night, he doesn’t even want to feel glad. Maybe he’s just glad that his own body is safe in his room, that must be it.

 

Before their official activities start, Jihoon asks Samuel to run him through the choreography they learned yesterday. Samuel thankfully doesn’t question him and his suddenly lack of muscle memory, and goes through it slow enough for Jihoon to understand it enough to run it on his own his own before their evening practice. “Hey, you okay? You seem a little down.”

 

Jihoon gives a noncommittal nod, still going through the dance in small movements as their walking downstairs to the kitchen. “I’m good, just adjusting to this place.”

 

He takes a seat next to Yoojung at the breakfast table, who slings an arm around him, “Morning!”

 

Jihoon cracks a small smile at her chipper tone, “What’s got you all giddy this early?”

 

Yoojung leans in closer, dropping her voice into a whisper, “Me and Doyeon snuck out last night to go to a karaoke room. It was so fun!”

 

Jihoon’s eyes widen, “You snuck out last night?”

 

Yoojung gives him an amused look as she stuffs a spoonful of soup into her mouth, “Is this your way of saying you’re not gonna rat us out? Don’t worry, we’ll return the favor.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“We saw you out last night with that kid from South 51. Dating the rival? That’s rebellious Jihoon, even for you.” Jihoon chokes on his orange juice. “I’m impressed. But don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

 

“We—We’re not dating!” He whisper-yells at her. How could she even deduct that from their interactions? He could have very well just been luring Woojin away only for him to leave him lost somewhere in the middle Seoul. Of course, he wasn’t actually _that_ horrible, but that seemed like a much more plausible case than him _dating_ Woojin.

 

Yoojung merely deadpans, obviously not convinced, “Oh, so do you just have a kink for getting it on with your enemy, no strings attached?”

 

“I’m going for a walk!” Jihoon announces, face flushed as he walks away from Yoojung’s cackling.

 

“Be back by 10!” Seongwoo shouts out after him.

 

Jihoon roams the camp grounds, but remembers to stay as far away from South 51 as possible. In fact, he’d be thankful if he didn’t have to face Woojin at all today. He would enjoy an entire Woojin-free day in his own body, with his friends, and his own crew.

 

As he reaches the edge of the water and steps out of his slippers, digging his toes into the sand, he closes his eyes and enjoys the calm sound of the rushing waves. The sun is barely out, but he can still feel it’s relaxing warmth as he savors the feeling of freedom just for a moment.

 

He doesn’t expect for it to be long before he’s invaded with vexation again, as thought of Woojin continue to pop up in his head. He wants to be mad, but the more Jihoon looks at him the more he comes to the bothersome realization that he recognizes the pieces that hold Woojin together. They’re made of the same stardust, and sometimes Jihoon hates him for it.

 

A while later, he hears a voice come up behind him. “Hey, you okay with some company?” Samuel steps beside him, looking out at the water.

 

Jihoon gestures to the empty space beside him, “Make yourself comfy.”

 

They stand in silence for a while, still as the soft wind blows past them. Jihoon has always been thankful for Samuel, how comfortable he’s able to be around him. Samuel doesn’t pry, doesn’t make anything his business unless he’s deliberately confided in. Jihoon thinks it’s nice to have someone who’s so understanding of when the timing is right to discuss things and when it’s just better let him have time to himself to think. He’s that kind of considerate company that doesn’t make itself prominent, the kind that knows that quiet support is sometimes one of the most helpful things.  

 

Jihoon likes Samuel as a person, but doesn’t know if his feelings would classify as a crush—though Donghan calls it that anyways. He’s never really explored love to the extent that most people his age already have, never thought it was much to be concerned about. He could flirt with whoever he wanted but at the end of the day, love was a concept that he didn’t actually have experience in, in spite of what people may think.

 

“You think we’ll be able to win this year?” Jihoon breaks the silence.

 

Samuel looks at him before turning back to the water and pressing his lips together, expression thoughtful, “It’d be nice if we could. But South 51 are strong competition. It’s not like we can ignore their talent just because we won last year.”

 

“How do you think Seongwoo would handle it if we lost to them again?”

 

“Oh, he’d blow his top off. Positively.” That gets a chuckle out of him, and Samuel is laughing along with him.

 

“Jihoon! Samuel!” They turn around to see Donghan waving them over, “We’re getting ready for today’s activities!”

 

Samuel sighs, “We should get back, Hades awaits.”

   

+

  

 

They don’t talk for the rest of the week. The only time they see each other is when they’re looking in the mirror during switch days. Jihoon is determined to avoid Woojin at all costs, and it's not like Woojin wants to see him either, after how long he had mulled over his fight with Jihoon that night. He doesn’t think he was wrong, but he definitely could have gone about that in a better way. It wasn’t exactly a called for topic either, he doesn’t even know why he’d gotten so riled up that night. But now he’s back in Jihoon’s body, and somehow it’s like Jihoon’s hate for him is still lingering throughout in his body, because Woojin feels this stabbing pain at his chest every time they switch.

 

The avoidance streak was bound to end sometime, and that sometime is today. Woojin sighs as he stares at Echo’s itinerary—they were going to be doing a two-hour workshop with South 51. And while he technically wasn’t going to see Jihoon in his own body, he’d still have to deal with the snark (if Jihoon even bothered to talk to him, that is.)

 

It’s not like their dispute is obvious, being that the relationship between both groups has been rocky since the beginning. Most of their crew members probably didn’t even know they've talked to each other. Woojin knows it’s not a good idea for them to be keeping up this useless obstinacy—they’d be stuck switching with each other every second day for the rest of their lives if they didn’t fix this somehow. Staying mad at each other arguably isn’t very beneficial to either of them. Woojin had missed out on South 51 receiving the spirit stick the night before, and it’s all because they can’t like each other enough to end this stupid karma. But Woojin definitely wouldn’t be the first one to give in. He’s not usually so adamant on upholding his pride, but somehow, Jihoon manages to spark the stubbornness inside of him.

 

Their instructor, Sunmi, doesn’t seem to notice the awkward tension in the air despite it floating around pretty evidently. Or maybe she doesn’t feel the need to comment on it until someone felt the need to get out of line. “Alright, let’s take it from the top! 5, 6, 7, 8!”

 

Woojin follows along easily, though he’s very hyperaware of the stare down Jihoon is giving him from the side. He tries to ignore it at first, but then he becomes more and more self-conscious and after messing up a move, he explodes. “Hey, keep your eyes on the mirror, would you?” He sneers, drawing attention to the both of them but Woojin can’t even bring himself to care anymore.

 

“Why don’t you focus on yourself?” Jihoon shoots back.

 

Miffed, Woojin starts to loosen up his moves. Soon, he’s falling behind in the choreo and bumping into others during formation changes. He purposefully hits the wrong beats and turns the wrong way. He can practically feel Jihoon’s anger from where he is, and when he looks at him, he’s visibly seething.

 

But consequently, Jihoon starts to do the same. He lets go of Sohee’s arm on purpose when they’re doing a carry over, and stands in the wrong window despite the many times Sunmi tries to correct him.

 

During the middle section when they’re in the same cluster, Woojin growls lowly, “Stop fucking things up.”

 

Jihoon stands up straight, making no attempt to keep their feud hushed. “You started it!”

 

“Hey, whoa. What’s going on?” Sunmi stalks over to them with her hands on her hips and for a second Woojin is intimidated.

 

“Oh, you know. Just an Echo member being a ‘typical pretentious bitch’.” Jihoon says in a mocking voice, eyes never leaving Woojin’s.

 

“Watch your mouth, kid.” Seongwoo butts in from behind Woojin.

 

“Why don’t _you_ take your crew to some anger management classes?” Daniel pushes through the crowd to the middle as soon as Seongwoo gets involved. “Clearly, none of you know how to mind your own business.”

 

Really, the whole thing in theory is quite humorous—Seongwoo and Daniel defending members of the opposite team without knowing, but soon the attempt to act civil for a two-hour class is thrown out the window as the entire room erupts into a dispute.

 

“Hey!” Sunmi shouts over them, “This is not the way any of you should be acting right now! This Is supposed to be a harmonious workshop; you’re supposed to be working _together_.”

 

“There’s no way in hell I’d ever work with them.” Seongwoo fumes, stomping away while the rest of Echo follow him out. Woojin throws Jihoon one last look before he leaves with the rest of them.

 

 

+

  

 

It doesn’t happen for an entire three days.

 

On the second day Woojin woke up in his own bed, he’d been extremely disoriented. At first, he had thought that maybe he’d just dreamt of being in his own body the previous day. He had gone on about his day normally, though he couldn’t help but notice the way Jihoon kept stealing glances at him as they crossed paths. And then the next day, he woke up in his own body again. It made no sense—they couldn’t have ended the switching; they hadn’t improved their relationship. In fact, they only seemed to have made things _worse_. Maybe being nice and understanding wasn’t the triggering factor? But there didn’t seem to be another reason, at least from what he remembers happening on that day.

 

He wants to talk to Jihoon; wants to figure out why they’re still in their own bodies for the third day in a row. But Jihoon is practically the embodiment of stubbornness, and Woojin knows that not even this could get him to talk. In fact, he’s probably enjoying the time he has as himself.

 

So Woojin does that too. He forgets about the whole ordeal and enjoys the time he has in his own body for as long as the universe would allow him to be in it before the switching starts again, and Woojin has a feeling it will. Regardless, he couldn’t be more glad to finally get a few Echo-free days. No switching, no concurrent schedules, and therefore, no Jihoon. His complaints become less frequent, and his focus when he finally gets to practice with his own crew is undeviating.

 

“Are you okay?” Daehwi asks him during their late dinner, after an extended practice that had drained most of the life out of them. He’s been stabbing at his food the entire time, making no move to eat. As the day went on, his worry on grew. And so did the small part in the back of his mind that was disappointed that Jihoon didn’t seem to be making any attempt to try and fix things.

 

“I'm fine.”

 

Daehwi frowns, “You don’t look like you’re fine.”

 

“Well I am.” Woojin shoots back. He almost regrets it but Daehwi doesn’t seem to take it to heart—if anything, he just looks even more concerned.

 

“Are you stressed about winning the championship?”

 

Woojin sighs. At this point he’s far from even caring about winning, but he doesn’t want anyone to worry, so he just nods. Daehwi puts a hand over his, swiping a thumb over the back of his hand. “We’ll do great, don’t let the nerves get to you. You’re one of our best dancers.”

 

He feels bad for lying to Daehwi. It’s not like he _wants_ to, but what is he supposed to tell him? ‘ _Hey, not to sound crazy or anything but me and that Echo kid randomly began switching bodies and we don’t know how to stop it’_? Daehwi would just laugh in his face and tell him he’s inhaled too much of the city air. He wouldn’t believe himself if he was in Daehwi’s place, either.

 

“And we have the spirit stick this week!” Sojung adds, “Maybe it’ll give us inspiration for choreography.”

 

“You’re keeping it safe, right?” Donghyun turns to Sohee.

 

Sohee looks up like a deer caught in headlights, “Me? I thought one of you took it from my room because you didn’t trust me with it.” She pouts, and they all look around the table, questioning with their eyes.

 

“We didn’t take it.” Youngmin speaks up for their room and looks towards Seunghoon.

 

“We don’t have it either.” They sit in silence for a beat, and then they’re all up and around the lodge, searching every corner of every room for the stick.

 

“Oh my God, guys. We did not just lose the spirit stick.” Sojung panics.

 

“Did you leave it in another building somewhere?’ Daniel asks Sohee, but she shakes her head.

 

“I brought it into the lodge, I remember. It was on my nightstand last night, I swear!”

 

“We’re cursed!” Daehwi wails, falling to the ground.

 

“We’re not cursed, Daehwi.” Woojin tries to reassure the younger, but it’s of no use.

 

“Boa is gonna kill us if she finds out we lost her spirit stick.” Donghyun points out apprehensively.

 

“Is this suspicious to anyone else?” Seunghoon questions, and everyone seems to know what he’s implying.  

 

“Of course Echo would play dirty.” Sohee scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “They broke into our lodge and stole the stick!”

 

Daniel stands up, infuriated, “I think it’s time for a real confrontation.”

 

“Wait, we can’t leave the lodge.” Sojung butts in before Daniel’s anger can fuel him. “Check in is in like half an hour and if we’re not in here then we’re gonna get in trouble.”

 

“We’ll go at midnight then. I’m not gonna wait any longer, those city snakes are gonna get what’s coming for them.”

 

  

+

 

  

After getting a tip from a lone member from LDT roaming the field near midnight that Echo had all snuck out to go play around the streets of the outlet, South 51 makes their way across the field, as discreetly as they can for them being in quite possibly the most open area they could be sneaking around in (“Why don’t we just go through the bushes in the back? This is so _not_ inconspicuous!” “We’re already half way Daehwi, shut up!”).

 

Once they reach the outskirts of the camp, they’re walking towards the wide street of the outlet, where they hear the faint sound of music. Seunghoon, who’s leading the group, holds his arms out before they can make their presence known to the other group. “Wait, I have a better idea than just walking up to them.”

 

They’re not sure what Seunghoon is talking about, but they all know he’s always been a big prank lover. He takes a handful of something from out of his pockets and turns the corner, throwing them at Echo before spinning back to hide behind the wall and they here a series of small exploding sounds and a bunch of screams.

 

“What the hell did you do?!” Daehwi shrieks, about to run out and check on them but Seunghoon pulls him back.

 

“Don’t worry, they’re just bang snaps. They’re harmless.” He pulls out the rest of the box of the small trick noisemakers.

 

Youngmin furrows his brows, “I thought they were called poppers.”

 

“I called them snappers.” Woojin inputs just as uselessly.

 

Sojung gapes at Seunghoon, brows snapped together, “You just carry around boxes of those things everywhere you go?”

 

Seunghoon’s mouth twists mischievously, “Pretty much, yeah.”

 

“Who the hell was that!” He hears a yell come from around the corner.

 

“So like, are we gonna run or confront them?”

 

“Oh, sweet Daehwi.” Seunghoon slings an arm around the younger’s shoulder, “We didn’t come all the way here just to play such a weak prank without backing it up with a fight.”

 

“Fight as in like verbal fight, right?”

 

The rest of the boys behind Seunghoon laugh, “If you like talking with your fists."

 

Fear crosses the younger’s face as Seunghoon motions for the rest of them to come out from behind the wall. Soon, they’re walking up to a crowd of angry Echo members.

 

“Snap’n pops?” Seongwoo lifts a brow as bends down to pick up one of the small fireworks and fiddles with it between his fingers. “Real mature.”

 

“They’re called bang snaps.” Seunghoon clarifies.

 

“I thought they were called Lil’ Splodeys.” Everyone stops and turns to look at Donghan, all with equally perplexed expressions.

 

“ _Lil’ Splodeys_?” Jihoon repeats incredulously, “Who in the _flying fuck_ calls it that?”

 

Donghan raises his hands up defensively, but Seongwoo calls attention off of them. “What the hell are you doing here? Come to pick a fight?”

 

“We’re coming to take back the spirit stick.” Daniel hisses, “I know you Seoul kids like to play dirty but this isn’t cool. We didn’t do shit to you when you had it.”

 

Seongwoo mere scoffs, “We don’t have the damn stick.”

 

“Bullshit.”

 

“Maybe you should chide your _members_ on being irresponsible instead of coming to accuse us.” Jihoon steps up, casting Woojin a dirty look before turning back to Daniel.

 

“We wouldn’t have lost it if you guys didn’t steal it.” Seunghoon counters, throwing down another handful of bang snaps at the feet of their group for good (though mostly childish) measure.

 

Daniel presses a finger hard into Seongwoo’s shoulder, pushing him back. “I am so sick of you thinking you’re better than us. We could beat you in a battle any day.”

 

A few of the Echo members snicker along with Seongwoo, “Are you saying you want a dance off?”

 

Daniel shrugs and steps back while opening his arms challengingly, “Why not?”

 

Seongwoo smirks, “Fine. Bring it.”

 

Sohee turns to them, whispering, “What kind of fight is this? What does this even prove?”  

 

Youngmin sighs, his only rationale being, “We’re dancers. Don’t question it.”

 

Donghan turns the music up, as the two groups stands against each other. Daehwi starts it off, coming out confidently with his polished waacking. Woojin and the rest of South 51 cheer him on as he gets up in Chungha’s face, reaching an arm out and flicking her hair, throwing her a provoking grin. Chungha retaliates with her own moves, and Woojin has to admit she’s an amazing dancer. Woojin knows from attending a few of Echo’s practices that Chungha helps choreograph their piece. Her moves are sleek and her stage presence and aura could hardly be beat. Seunghoon comes out after Chungha steps back and motions Samuel to step up. They have different styles but they’re both immensely talented.

 

Seongwoo gives them a smug look, “You can’t beat my break-dancers.”

 

Daniel snarls, as the rest of the break-dancers in their group make their way to the front, “Watch us.”

 

Their group steps back to make room for them and Daniel starts it off with a basic toprock, into a 12 step, and falls into some flares. The Echo members soon follow him up with their own air flares and hand hops. Woojin can see as they get more and more competitive, stepping up their difficulty level despite dancing on concrete. He almost says something after one of Echo’s members falls into a multitude of criticals.

 

“This is looking a little dangerous.” Sojung frets, “Hyuk already hurt his wrist a few days ago.”

 

At the moment Hyuk turns into a backflip, they’re all blinded by bright lights shining at them and loud voices shouting at them. At the sudden interruption of security, a bunch of the dancers fall out of their spins and flips, groaning and clutching at their wrists, shoulders, and ankles. And Woojin realizes that it’s far too late to do anything about the bad omens now, they were all screwed.

 

 

 

 

 

“I am extremely disappointed in all of you tonight.” Boa begins, the two crews standing around in the main lodge, though both down almost half of their members. “You’ve just ruined our chances against Camp Victory! And to top it all off, you _lost_ my spirit stick!”

 

“Seongwoo give her back her spirit stick.” Daniel jeers. He has a small cut on his forearm but it’s hardly anything compared to some of their other team members, who were getting treated as they spoke.

 

“I don’t have her goddamn spirit stick!” Seongwoo quips, “If I had the stick, why would _my_ crew have gotten hurt?”

 

“Because you weren’t supposed to have it!”

 

“Alright, Alright! Enough!” Boa shouts, and the two immediately shrink back. “You have all let down yourselves, _and_ your camp. Look at you! Half of your members were either injured or are currently being pulled out of camp by their parents who are worried that this camp is too dangerous of a place for them! Do you know what kind of reputation you’re giving this place? Neither of your teams even fit the criteria for the group size of this competition!

 

“So I want you to think about what you’ve done as you pack up tonight because when you wake up tomorrow morning, there will be buses outside waiting to take you all home.”

 

They all groan as the group of instructors disperse. They had one of the best opportunities to make a name for their team, to make a name for _themselves_ , and they lost it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _visne saltare?_ — do you want to dance?

 

 

 

| _visne saltare?_

 

 

 

 

There’s a bitter feeling left in their mouths as they’re loading their luggage onto the bus, it felt so wrong to just give up. But it’s not like they could still compete even if they begged Boa for forgiveness. Rules were rules, and the competition called for a minimum group size of ten. Their mere eight-membered group could no longer fight for a spot, and neither could Echo’s seven.

 

“I hope you’re not too hard on yourselves about this.” Daniel says, leaning against the bus. “It’s my fault, I started the rumble.”

 

Seunghoon gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze, “We all took part in it, don’t blame yourself either.”

 

“I just wish there was something we could do. It kinda feels wrong to just.. leave like this.” Youngmin adds sullenly.

 

Woojin watches as Daniel casts a look towards the Echo bus, as their team loads their bus. “Well, there is one thing we could try.”

 

The group follows as Daniel walks up to Seongwoo, “Look. I don’t think you guys stole the spirit stick anymore.”

 

Seongwoo scoffs, “Like that matters anymore.”

 

“Maybe not.” Daniel admits, slipping his hands into his pockets, “But I do know that this competition matters to both of our groups.”

 

“Yeah, so what?”

 

“You’d consider an option that would allow you to stay and compete, right? Even if it means coming together.” He tries, though Seongwoo looks averse to the idea, “I think Echo is already on the spirit’s hit list.”

 

“Because of you!” Seongwoo reminds him, and then turns around and heads towards the bus.

 

“Seongwoo, if we leave now we’ll all stay cursed.” Seongwoo stops, and Woojin can’t tell if he’s considering it but it does seem like he’s wavering. “Come on.”

 

Seongwoo turns around with a sigh and gives them one last look, “Come on guys, we’re leaving.”

 

+

 

 

 

When Seongwoo turns around, he sees Donghan standing at the bottom of the bus steps, giving him a look that he immediately understands, “What? You expect me to say yes to that prick?”

 

Donghan shrugs, “I just never pegged you for a quitter.”

 

“I’m not quitting!” Seongwoo clarifies. “I’m just embracing my future. We’re all out of options.”

 

The younger boy raises an eyebrow, and Seongwoo is faltering by the second, “Are we really? Or are you just avoiding them?”

 

He continues to stare at Donghan, he looks at him until he can find it in himself to pick his pride back up and not defer to Daniel’s offer. So what if they’re good dancers? They were annoying; them and their stupid bubbliness, them and their stupid _hope_. Hope doesn’t get you anywhere, tenacity and hard work does. They have plenty of that, it’s _all_ they have. They didn’t need South 51 to win.

 

But they did need them to try.

 

Who is he to try and talk about grit and endurance when he’s the one throwing it away because of a set back? Here he is, so bent on trying to turn away from his past that he’s hindering his own team with his foolish personal reasons. His team persists through all of his scrutiny and perfectionism; they _bleed_ dedication. They take whatever he throws at him and they don’t complain, they consume criticism, they _appreciate_ it. Every single one of them have shown him through and through that they’re all-or-nothing for this team. This is important to all of them, and for once, Seongwoo starts to realize that maybe not everything is always about him.

 

The members that are left of Echo watch as their bus rolls away without them, and Seongwoo meets Daniel’s eyes as he’s about to board his own bus. He sees the small smile that tugs at his lips as he steps down. Seongwoo and his group walk towards them, as they all file out of the bus curiously. “Okay, we’re in.”

 

Daniel’s smile grows bigger, and there’s a small pang in Seongwoo’s chest as he remembers the various times he’s seen that smile—remembers when it was because of _him_. Daniel raises a hand for a high-five but Seongwoo snaps out of it and gives him a once over. “I’m captain, of course.”

 

The hand turns into a fist and comes down to his shoulder.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

“You two? Perform together? In what, a dance battle to the death?” Boa looks at the two of their captains suspiciously, as the rest of them watch on from the back.

 

“We’d be co-captains.” Seongwoo clears up, but not without glowering at Daniel. It’s clear to all of them that this is going to be a struggle. “Boa, even if it’s just half of our teams, we’re still the best dancers at this camp.”

 

Daniel nods, “If you want to beat Camp Victory, this camp is gonna need our help.”

 

Boa bite down on the inside of her cheek, surveying the room of dancers and their hopeful faces, “Fine, you can compete. But I’m going to have to talk to the council to approve you as a team.”

 

The group erupts into cheers, and the two captains smile in relief. After their talk with Boa, the South 51 members unpack their things at Echo’s villa, since their previous lodge had been closed for cleaning.

 

“Can we just camp outside or something?” Seunghoon complains, having been forced to take up one of the couches in the living room downstairs because all of the beds had been taken.

 

“We don’t have tents.” Youngmin points out, setting up his own sleeping bag on the other side of the sectional sofa.

 

Daniel is setting up on the small couch across from them. “We’ll be fine guys, it won’t be that bad.”

 

“We just walked right into the enemy’s den!” Seunghoon exaggerates, falling onto the couch in despair.

 

“They’re not the enemy.” Daniel corrects him, though he sounds precarious himself, “Not anymore. Camp Victory are our enemies and if we wanna beat them and go to the World Dance Festival we need to cooperate.”

 

“Easier said than done.” Woojin adds from his spot of the floor, fiddling with Samuel’s Rubik’s cube.

 

“Isn’t that Samuel’s?” Daniel points out, as if it supports his suggestion.

 

Woojin shrugs, “He’s the only nice one out of them.”

 

“How do you even know?” Daehwi asks from beside him. For a while, Woojin stays quiet. He can’t tell them that he’s been hanging out with him before this because he was ‘with’ them almost every hour of the day, and he sure as hell can’t tell them that he’s befriended him through switching with Jihoon.

 

“He let me borrow this?” Apparently, it’s a good enough reason that they all drop the subject indifferently.

 

“I don’t think it should be us you’re worried about when you obviously have some ongoing tension with Seongwoo.” Sojung says matter-of-factly, and Daniel flushes.

 

“I’m working on it.” He replies simply, “And besides, the ones who should be learning to put their differences aside are Woojin and Jihoon.”

 

Woojin shifts uncomfortably; even though their teams are going to be working together, Woojin still can’t find it in him to want to talk to Jihoon. He’s knows that their argument was so long ago that they should be over it by now, but somehow, Jihoon’s stubbornness managed to rub off on him and he doesn’t want to be the one to make the effort, mostly because he thinks Jihoon wouldn’t care enough try. It’s not like he can avoid him any longer, with how they need to see each other every day for workshops and practice—and now their rooms are right across from each other. No amount of thorough planning and timing could keep them from seeing each other multiple times a day.

 

It’s been four days and counting since their last switch. Woojin feels frustrated, being unable to talk to anyone about it. The only outlet he has for discussing the entire thing is his memo pad in his phone, and it’s not like that’s of any help.  

 

As he’s walking up the stairs towards his shared room with Daehwi and Donghyun, he encounters Jihoon is the open area outside of the rooms. They stand there for a while, just looking at each other, possibly waiting for the other to say he first word. Woojin thinks that maybe he should finally give up on this stupid resolution and just talk to him, but before he can open his mouth, Jihoon’s voice reaches his ears. “We need to talk.”

 

Jihoon pulls him into his room, shutting the door behind him. And though Woojin has been in his room before, knows it like it’s his own place, when he’s in there as himself he can’t help but feel out of place. He stays by the door as Jihoon sits down on the edge of his bed.

 

“What’s going on?” Jihoon starts, and it’s clear that he’s just as tense as Woojin. “It’s been four days. Why haven’t we switched? Did it stop?”

 

Woojin shakes his head slowly, “No, I don’t think so. There was no reason for it to stop. But I still can’t figure out why we’re still in our own bodies.”

 

Jihoon chews on his bottom lip, his fingers drumming out a restless beat on his thighs. “Do you think it’s because of our argument?”

 

Woojin’s brows furrow, “Shouldn’t it have triggered the opposite reaction, though? Like we’d be stuck in each other’s bodies for four days instead of in our own?”

 

“Maybe whatever fucked up spirit is doing this to us is trying to send us some sort of message.”

 

Woojin mulls it over, “This happened after the whole sabotage situation during the last time we switched, right?” Jihoon nods, “What if this.. _thing_ , is trying to teach us something? I don’t know about you but I’ve been super on edge about the no-switching thing—even though it’s relieving to be in my own body I can’t stop thinking about how I might wake up as you the next day and it’s kind of stressing me out. I mean, we haven’t talked in almost a whole week, it was clear that neither of us were going to relent until we were given a situation where we _had_ to talk to each other.”

 

“Like this.” Jihoon finishes and Woojin nods.

 

“Exactly. And then it would eventually drive us to make amends to end the switching so we could finally live without having to think about it.”

 

Jihoon’s head falls into his hands, evidently worn out just from thinking about the situation, “So what do we do now?”

 

Before they can continue discussing, they hear Seongwoo’s voice calling them over. “Let’s continue this later.”

 

 

+

 

 

 

“Alright! So first things first, we should come up with a name.”

 

“Uh, Echo 51?” Sohee suggests.

 

Sojung pipes up, “Or South.. Echo…?”

 

“Okay, _no_. We are not gonna turn our possible _ship_ names into our competing name.” Jihoon cuts in, and Woojin thinks it’s been forever since he’s heard his voice.

 

“Then what do you suggest?” Woojin directs his question at Jihoon; this is the first time they’ve talked in a week but it’s not like Woojin is going to be able to avoid him any longer.

 

“I don’t know, just pick a random word that sounds cool, not like it matters.”

 

“Ah, are you the brilliant mind behind _Echo_? How innovative.” Woojin proclaims, further egging Jihoon on. Oh how he missed having someone to heckle.

 

Jihoon scoffs, rolling his eyes, “Your name is just a direction and your area code, I don’t think you guys are any better.”

 

“Alright, maybe we should just move on and leave the name for later.” Daniel cuts them both off. “I’m sure we both already have some choreo and formations done for our pieces, maybe we can watch them and then break them apart to see what works together.”

 

For the next hour, the two crews perform what they have so far, picking out moves that work together and altering formations.

 

“The height on this side looks off,” “Daniel comments as he’s making formations, “Doyeon, switch with Sojung.”

 

Doyeon laughs, hands on her hips, “I don’t do the back row.”

 

Daniel sighs, casting a look towards Seongwoo, who just shrugs “Doyeon is a great front row dancer, she can dance her ass off.”

 

“Yeah and Sojung can too so I’m saying switch so the height matches.” Daniel is firm, and after a while Seongwoo gives in, urging an irritated Doyeon to the back row.

 

They take turns teaching each other their choreography, and though the bickering never seems to go away, they do make _some_ progress. They try out their new formations and Seongwoo teaches them new material. Everyone seems a lot more stressed, resulting in a great deal of mistakes. At one point, they’re in lines doing canons and Sohee goes on the wrong count, elbowing Doyeon in the ribs.

 

“Hey loser, ever heard of counting?” Doyeon blows up, whacking her arm away.

 

“Ever heard of teamwork?” Sojung butts in, leading Sohee behind her and facing Doyeon herself.

 

“Shut up, Sojung.” Doyeon sighs, running her hands down her face, “It’s way too early for this.”

 

“Hey, stop.” Daniel impedes before a fight can erupt again, “We’re a team now, we need to work together.”

 

“We’re not a team,” Doyeon returns, “and this was a dumb idea.”

 

Daniel turns to the rest of the group, “Come on, there has to be some way we can learn to work together.” They all stay quiet, looking around but no one is throwing out suggestions. Daniel picks up his phone and turns on a different song. It’s slower, and he has a resolved look on his face. All eyes are on him as he walks up to Seongwoo, holding out a hand. Seongwoo has his arms crossed, looking him over but still unmoving. Daniel lifts an eyebrow, giving him another persuasive looks and Seongwoo rolls his eyes, but takes his hand anyways.

 

“How about we start,” Daniel says, bringing his and Seongwoo’s clasped hands up and pulls him in by the waist with his other hand. “with pairs.”

 

Daniel takes the lead and Seongwoo follows apprehensively, starting off with some basic ballroom steps. Then, Daniel releases Seongwoo’s waist and intertwines both of their hands, leading as he steps forward and Seongwoo steps back. They go back and forth like this, with salsa steps and turns. The tension practically envelops the room as the group watches the two of them never lose eye contact.

 

“So uh, is this gonna end with a kiss or are you finally gonna teach us what you’re doing?” Daehwi interrupts blatantly, earning a few snickers.

 

“Oh, r-right.” Daniel stammers, releasing Seongwoo from his hold and Seongwoo looks like he’s trying hard to fight back the heat rising up from his neck, but it’s not quite working. “Okay, I’ll pair you up.”

 

Daniel goes around the room, heaving people up from their places on the ground and leading them towards each other. He pairs Daehwi off with Samuel, Donghan with Sohee, and eventually, he brings together Woojin and Jihoon.

 

“W-what? No, I’m not dancing with him.” Jihoon protests doggedly, but Woojin doesn’t say anything.

 

“You two have the most problems within our group, you’re gonna have to work it out if we want to build our teamwork.” Daniel finishes before taking it upon himself to bring their hands together. Both of their eyes widen as they stare at their intertwined fingers, and Woojin coughs awkwardly.  “Go ahead.” Daniel urges them on and walks away, then takes Seongwoo out of the room.

 

Jihoon is still staring at him wordlessly, and Woojin figures that if he doesn’t do anything then they’re just gonna end up standing there looking stupid. “Follow my lead.”

 

“I don’t follow anyone’s lead.” Jihoon retorts, earning an eye-roll from Woojin.

 

“Well you’re about to start.” Woojin declares as he steps forward, to which Jihoon steps back instinctively. A smirk plays on Woojin’s lips, “See, natural.”

 

Jihoon scowls, but still continues to follow Woojin as he leads them through the steps he knows. Soon, the entire room is filled with pairs from the two teams, increasingly beginning to have fun with the whole partner thing. Daehwi and Samuel seem to be having the most fun, and Woojin thinks they go together well for two people who’ve never spoken before.

 

“Why aren’t we having as much fun as them?”

 

Jihoon looks at him like the answer is obvious, “Because we hate each other.”

 

Woojin frowns, “I don’t hate you.”

 

Jihoon looks shocked for a short moment, but his expression smooths away as quickly as it appeared, replaced by the skeptical narrowing of his eyes, “I find that extremely hard to believe.”

 

“Why?” Jihoon pauses, stopping them from their absentminded dancing. With his silence, Woojin starts again, “Do _you_ hate me?”

 

For the first time, Woojin thinks that Jihoon looks _vulnerable_ —like he’s left his mask at home and can no longer hide his emotions as well as he used to. Somehow it makes Woojin feel closer to him, like he’s slowly cracking away at his shell. “No.” Jihoon finally replies in a quiet voice.

 

A foreign feeling swirls around in Woojin’s stomach at the revelation. His eyes are focused and unwavering on Jihoon, whose looking back up at him in uncertainty. “So we don’t hate each other.” 

 

“Guess not.”

 

“But we don’t exactly like each other either.”

 

Jihoon lets out a small chuckle. It makes Woojin feel warm inside—it’s a sound he rarely gets to hear, so hearing it catches him off guard. “Not exactly.”

 

“But,” Woojin continues hesitantly, a lot more timid now, “We can _try_.” It comes off as more of a statement than a question like he had intended it to be. Woojin searches Jihoon’s eyes for any signs of rejection, but he looks a lot more harmonious.

 

“Yeah,” he concedes, “we can try.”

 

Woojin allows himself to smile, but it tapers off quickly when he hears his name being called. “Uh, guys? Are you gonna join us any time today or?”

 

They look towards the rest of the group, who are now standing in a circle, some laughing at them. He and Jihoon both spring apart from each other, stammering out strings of words that don’t exactly help them but Daniel and Seongwoo don’t have time to hear their unconvincing excuses out because they’re quickly being pulled back to where everyone else is.

 

“Alright, so we’re gonna be doing some sub-unit pieces in the middle. I know Woojin has been working on a piece, and the song works with the ones we have now so I want you to expand on it.”

 

Woojin nods heartily, thrilled that his piece would be part of the championship performance, “On it, Cap.”

 

Daniel smiles at him, and then looks around the circle. “We’re gonna split you all up into small groups, and since we’ve already established that you’re choreographing a piece I’ll assign people to your group first.”

 

Woojin raises his hand, “Can I have Jihoon?”

 

Jihoon snaps his head towards him immediately, the surprise evident this time—both in him and in everyone else, who all look at him like he’s grown another head. Seongwoo is taken aback as well, “Why Jihoon?”

 

“I, uh,” He tries to pull something out of his head that doesn’t sound like he wants him _just_ to want him, and in the end settles with, “building teamwork?”

 

“Um, okay, sure.” Daniel agrees, “As long as you don’t kill each other.”

 

Woojin laughs awkwardly, “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

 

Daniel assigns Yoojung and Chungha to his group as well (“That’s a powerful-ass fucking group.” Daehwi marvels, and then gets scolded by Donghyun for his language.), and then continues on dividing the rest of the team into three smaller groups.

 

 

 

Later that evening, as they’re walking out of the studio, Jihoon notices Seongwoo looking intently at the entrance of their rival camp, Camp Victory. Their new team had been kept a secret; the owner of the camp, Taemin, had been hinting that their secret crew was going to surprise everyone. Jihoon isn’t sure how a secret group who’s never been seen before could seem so threatening to everyone, but he also knows that Taemin is an alumnus of his high school, and everyone who knows him knows that he practically _bleeds_ dance. If this is the crew he teaches, then maybe they could actually be something to be scared about.

 

“We need to check out the competition.” Seongwoo says, earning a few wide-eyed stares.

 

“How are we gonna do that?” Donghyun asks incredulously, “ _Sneak in_ to their camp?” 

 

Seongwoo snaps and points at Donghyun with a smile, “Good idea.”

 

“I—what.”

 

Daniel puts a hand on Donghyun’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, he had that planned in his head before he even looked at the entrance.”

 

“We’re gonna need some disguises.”

 

 

 

 

“This is the most conspicuous thing we could ever be doing.” Woojin deadpans as they look down at their obvious sunglasses, straw hats and scarfs.

 

“I thought Seoulites were supposed to be cunning.” Daehwi adds, “This is disappointing.”

 

“Hey, stop flapping your mouths and _move it_.” Donghan instructs impatiently, pushing the two further.

 

As unobtrusive as they can (which really, isn’t very much), the seven of them make their way into the other camp. As a group starts walking towards them, Daniel shouts, “Quick, couple up!”

 

They all separate from each other; Daniel quickly grabs onto Seongwoo’s hands and immediately goes into fake-boyfriend mode. Daehwi clings onto Samuel’s arm and starts pointing towards a whole area of nothing, and Woojin slings an arm across Jihoon’s shoulder, all while Donghan throws his hands up in the air bitterly, “Am I just the seventh wheel here?”

 

When they get closer to Victory’s main building, they all reconvene, quickly finding their way to the studios. When they reach a hallway, Jihoon spots Taemin at the end of it, entering one of the rooms. “Over there!”

 

They all try to peer through the small window of the door into the studio, where they see Taemin watching over a group practice with a smug smile. “That must be them.”

 

The group falls into a small trance as they watch the compelling synchrony of the group; they were moving like one, to the extent that even their jumps were in harmony, with the height and landing in perfect timing. “We’re so screwed.” Samuel groans, and the group walks away from their new found threat.

 

They meet up with the rest of the crew back in the villa, and explain to them what they had seen.

 

“What are we gonna do?” Jihoon laments, “Their teamwork is packed down, we still barely get along!”

 

“We need something big.” Seongwoo states pensively, “Something unique, that’ll get the attention from the judges and the audience. We need something to bring them up on their feet.”

 

“Me and Doyeon used to be cheerleaders.” Chungha interjects, as everyone turns to look at them curiously, “We were thinking that if we worked hard enough at it, we could manage a few air stuff, like basic stunts and tossing.”

 

“I’m no cheerleader.” Seunghoon spiels.

 

“Suck it up, Seunghoon.” Donghan returns, “You’d just be a base, all you have to do is lift someone up.”

 

“That could work, but we have to be really careful.” Daniel says sternly, “If we want to do this we’re gonna have to make sure to reduce any chance of injuries as much as possible. Which means we have to learn to stop arguing.”

 

The group cast glances at each other. It would be a struggle, but if there’s one thing Jihoon knows, is that both teams have enough greed in them that they’ll do anything to secure than win for them.

 

“Let’s do it.”

 

 

+

 

 

 

In the morning, Woojin is slightly unhinged when he sees the white walls of the room, having forgotten that they had moved into Echo’s villa the previous day. But then he realizes that this isn’t the room he shares with Daehwi and Donghyun, and when he looks to his left he sees Donghan and Samuel, still asleep. He turns the right towards the dresser and sees Jihoon in the mirror.

 

He’s in Jihoon’s body again. Maybe they were on the right track with the theory they had discussed yesterday? Woojin gets up and slips out of the room, cracking the door of his own room and checks if Jihoon is awake. When he peeks into the room, he sees Jihoon near the dresser, fixing his hair.

 

“Psst.” Woojin gets his attention and Jihoon follows him out of the room. They move towards the balcony and sit down at the small table outside.

 

“It worked.” Jihoon says, sounding shocked even though they had discussed the possibility of the reason yesterday.

 

“Yeah, I think our theory might be right, or at least it might be close.”

 

“So,” Jihoon continues, “What do we do now?”

 

“We try to be friends?”

 

“Do you really think that’s the thing that will stop the switching?” Jihoon asks, genuinely curious, without any of his usual sarcasm.

 

“I don’t see what other way we’d be able to return back to normal, we might as well give it a try.”

 

Jihoon throws him a hard look, but Woojin can tell it’s more teasing than serious, “Why do you sound like it’s such a laborious task to try and be friends with me?”

 

His responding smile is teasing as well, “Cause you’re a piece of work, Park Jihoon.”

 

 

 

 

During practice that night, they have a bunch of mats laid down on the dance floor, to ensure that there wouldn’t be any severe injuries in the cases of a mistake. Chungha and Doyeon are chosen to be the flyers, as they had experience that assured them that they knew what they were doing. Daniel, Youngmin and Woojin are decided to be the base for Chungha, while Seongwoo, Jihoon and Donghan were bases for Doyeon. As they figure out the stunt that they’re going to do, Seunghoon takes lead of the other group to teach them the choreo they would be doing in front of the stunt.

 

Chungha and Doyeon run the boys through their positions and how their arms should be when they catch them. Woojin and Jihoon spare glances at each other every once in a while, to make sure they’re doing well with the switch, as it had been a while since they had last been in each other’s bodies. It takes them the rest of their practice that day just to get down the first part of their stunt; Daniel wants to be extra sure that they perfect every part of it. 

 

At the end of the day they don’t get much done, but they’ve figured out what they’ll be doing and with a lot more work, they all agree that they can pull it off.

 

“Alright, good work today guys!” Seongwoo claps, “Get some sleep and we’ll start our day early tomorrow.”

 

Woojin spends his night in Jihoon’s body choreographing for his section away from the others. It’s hard to get some private time with all of their members swarming about the villa, but it seems like everyone is finally getting along. They’re no longer separated by South 51 members and Echo, they’re all talking with one another, playing games while one group cooks. With how much fun it sounds like everyone is having, he kind of wants to join them, but he knows that he’s going to have to teach his section soon and he has to have his piece done and perfected to show Daniel and Seongwoo.

 

And then it hits him rather belatedly that one of his teaching days might fall on one of their switch days. He groans as he realizes he probably needs to teach Jihoon the whole thing beforehand just in case that happens.

 

When he goes downstairs he finds Jihoon in his body chatting away with Daehwi and Samuel on one of the couches. He contemplates just going up to him and pulling him out of the conversation but he realizes how weird that would look. Even if he simply asked him to talk, it would seem pretty suspicious to everyone else, given that their bickering is a well-known case for everyone. In the end, he settles for meeting his eyes and hoping that he understands him when he points his chin towards the stairs and walks back up into Jihoon’s room.

 

Soon after, Jihoon is walking into the room with a curious look. “What is it?”

 

“I’ve realized that it might be a little difficult for me to teach my section if we’re switching every second day.”

 

Understanding dawns upon Jihoon, “Shoot.”

 

Woojin draws in a long breath, “Yeah. So I was thinking that maybe tomorrow after practice I could teach you what I have so far? In case Daniel makes me teach on a switch day.”

 

Jihoon’s fingers are playing at the hem of his sweater, “Do you think they’d be able to detect the difference if I taught? What if I mess up?”

 

“I’ll walk you through it as much as I can tomorrow, and I’ll make sure you have it packed down solid so you don’t have to worry.”

 

“Alright.” Jihoon agrees, though it’s impossible to miss the tense set of his jaw, forehead creased with worry.

 

“You’ll be fine.” Woojin assures him, “You’re a good dancer.”

 

The statement must have caught Jihoon off guard, because first he’s looking at him with his mouth agape, and then the flush that rushes up his cheeks almost makes him want to do it again. “I’d say the same for you but I technically haven’t really seen you dance before.”

 

Woojin smirks slightly, “You might want to prepare yourself.”

 

Jihoon scoffs immediately, though Woojin can see a hint of a smile, “Don’t be dramatic.”

 

Woojin merely shrugs, “Don't say I didn’t warn you.”

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

After their workshops and afternoon practice, the group disperse for their free time. Woojin and Jihoon stay behind in the studio, but not before being cast a suspicious glance by Daehwi, “You’re not gonna kill each other in here, are you?”

 

Woojin rolls his eyes, “Have you even seen us fight at all this week?”

 

Daehwi narrows his eyes, looking back and forth between them, “No..”

 

“There you go, we’re good now, don’t worry about it.” He assures the younger boy, who makes his leave reluctantly.

 

Jihoon moves to stand next to Woojin, who’s scrolling through his phone at the table near the aux cable. Leaning on the table, he crosses his arms and teases, “So, is it time for you to put on a personal show for me?”

 

Woojin snaps his head towards him with a glare but Jihoon can see the pink dusting the top of his ears and knows that he’s gotten to him. There’s something about his irritation that amuses him to no end, especially the way he gets flustered when he says something flirty.

 

“Well now I’m gonna be uncomfortable showing you.”

 

“Oh please, you were gonna be nervous either way.” Jihoon says in a light tone but he knows that Woojin is nervous. He can tell that this is important to him that his choreography is going to be part of their competition piece and he doesn’t doubt that Woojin would be insecure about it. He’d picked up from all the times he’d spent with Daehwi, Youngmin and Donghyun that he needs reassurance quite often. His friends—despite the way they joke around with him all the time—seem to really care about him and want him to know that he’s great at what he does.

 

Jihoon would be lying if he said he wasn’t even a little bit excited to finally get to see the passion and fire that everyone says is in Woojin’s eyes when he dances. He wants to see the skill that backs up his competitiveness, his _drive_. Jihoon isn’t usually competitive, but he’s definitely stubborn. He noticed back when he first joined that the desire to win seemed to be a mutual trait among the other members of Echo, so he went along with it. It wasn’t until Woojin showed up that he found himself craving victory, even if it were only to bug him. But Woojin—dance was obviously something that was part of his identity. It’s all that surrounds him when he’s in Woojin’s body, it’s like there’s nothing else he would want to do, nothing that would be as satisfying as it.

 

He realizes that it’s much like how he feels about acting. Sure, he was bent on proving himself to his family and to his peers, but he’s always been interested in the field, with or without the thought of his family's approval. For a long time, he’d felt that it was so difficult to be himself—he always thought that he’d have to live as a robot, only there to benefit his family’s business and their reputation. For a while he didn’t even think there was another option, but then when he was eight he’d been asked to play a small role in a movie and ever since then, he’d come to realize that maybe life wasn’t just all about making other people happy; Maybe it was okay to find happiness for himself.

 

“Hey, you good?” Woojin’s voice brings him back. He’s already made his way to the middle of the dance floor and started stretching.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Could you press play?” Woojin points to his phone beside Jihoon and Jihoon complies, before moving to the other side of the table and leaning against the mirror to get a better view. Of the dance, not Woojin.

 

Jihoon thinks he’s ready for it—thinks he ready to hold a straight face no matter how good Woojin might end up being. But then he hears the song that comes and oh God, how did he not account for the possibility of a R&B song playing? Jihoon doesn’t even need to watch the dance to know that he’s going to need to work a lot harder at keeping his composure because this is song is, to put it simply, really sensual.

 

But it’s not like he needs to be worried if he’s not attracted to Woojin, right? Wrong. Jihoon would be an idiot not to see how admittedly gorgeous Woojin is; his tan skin, his charming eyes, his adorable snaggletooth. He’s known since the first time he saw Woojin that he was cute, but up until recently, he didn’t let himself care about it because he was supposed to be his enemy. But now they’re on the same team and their relationship has improved considerably and he can’t even bring himself to deny how _really fucking attracted_ he is to the stupid South 51 kid.

 

With the music, Woojin changes completely. His gaze is so intense it knocks the breath out of Jihoon. Woojin completely gets lost in the music, hitting moves sharply from the very beginning and then smoothing them out. Every move is calculated and deliberate. He's controlled, executing every move in his mind with precision. There's a wild yet contained energy in him that he's never seen in someone before. He moves quickly, with purpose, but smooth enough that he's able to flow seamlessly into the next move. At times there's a little spontaneity in his dancing, a dash of his own flair that doesn't seem pre-meditated, it just falls out naturally.

 

He has Jihoon on the edge the entire time, following his patterns and when he thinks he knows what he's going to do next, Woojin changes it up and keeps it interesting. He'll be following a simple 4/4 and when Jihoon thinks he'll fall into a slower pace with the melody change, he’ll play on the quick hi-hats in a way that’s so sharp and precise that it surprises him. He pulls in every ounce of his attention, he makes Jihoon crave more. He sees how the spark in Woojin's eyes translate into his moves, how it surges through every inch of his body—it’s almost hypnotic. Jihoon doesn't remember ever looking away, he doesn't know how anyone _could,_ with him commanding attention like that.

 

Woojin ends it with his chest heaving with every breath, a few visible drops of sweat sliding down the sides of his face. He has one had on his hip and another carding through his hair, lifting it off of his forehead. He looks at Jihoon after he’s fixed his hair, waiting for a response. Jihoon can only look at him with his lips parted slightly, eyes roaming down his body and he forgets what he’s supposed to be saying.

 

“Well,” Woojin’s voice makes his mouth snap shut, forcing his eyes down to the floor, “How was it?”

 

“I—Um, g-good?” It’s definitely not the kind of composed he wants to be in front of Woojin but the other doesn’t seem to want to tease him for it, because he still looks anxious.

 

“Just good? Do you think it’ll get a pass from Daniel and Seongwoo?” Jihoon can tell that Woojin isn’t too confident in his abilities and his creativity by the almost imperceptible tremble of his hands, but Jihoon can’t think of any reason he would need to be.

 

“Sorry, I mean, it was really good.” Jihoon admits, throwing away his pride in hopes that the insecurity painted on Woojin’s face fades away, and because he’s sure that Woojin isn’t in any mindset to be making fun of him for it, “It was clean and enticing, and I think our group can pull it off really well.”

 

Woojin’s face lights up slightly, and It’s so heartwarming that Jihoon has to direct his focus back to the ground, “You think?”

 

“Yeah,” Jihoon bites his lip, contemplating his next words, and then deciding that maybe Woojin needs to hear this, “You don’t seem to be that confident in it but you’re really talented, honest. It’s really good.”

 

“Thanks.” Woojin says in a quiet voice and Jihoon can’t bring himself to look at Woojin’s face again, mostly due to the fact that he’s awfully embarrassed about having to be so straight up with him, no sarcasm or anything. It’s different, but Jihoon thinks that if he can get that small smile out of Woojin and boost his confidence in his abilities even by a little bit, then maybe it’s worth it. “So um, do you want me to teach you now?”

 

“Oh, right, yeah.” Jihoon almost trips on his feet as he makes his way onto the dance floor, but thankfully Woojin turns around before he can see him further embarrass himself.

 

For the next hour, Woojin runs him through the moves and it’s quite a struggle to stay focused on the learning and not get distracted by how the moves are slower as he’s teaching him. And that means Woojin’s body rolls are slower and his hands go down his body at a pace that has Jihoon watching until they snap up into the next move and he’s getting scolded for being lost again. But it’s kind of hard to focus when the room feels like he’s dancing with the sun.

 

“Are you okay?” Woojin asks him when he falls behind in the dance again.

 

“Yeah, why?” He shoots back immediately, wondering how he’s even an actor if he’s so shit at pretending like he’s totally okay right now.

 

Woojin frowns, eyes lingering on Jihoon’s face, “You’re really flushed. Should we just continue this tomorrow?”

 

Jihoon nods, ‘Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

 

“Alright,” Woojin walks towards him and puts a hand on his shoulder, “Get some rest, you look tired.” His hand, instead of just falling back down to his side like Jihoon expect it to, continues to run down his arm and their fingertips brush softly before Woojin is walking away to grab his stuff.

 

Jihoon is left standing in the same place for a minute, wondering why his bones have started to feel like jelly. He _has_ had a long day of workshops and dancing, that’s probably the reason why his throat is so dry.

 

 A shower. He needs a cold shower right now.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

When Jihoon gets back to the villa, he enters his room to find Donghan and Samuel on their respective sides of the room, working away at their own things—Samuel is watching dance videos intently and Donghan has a notebook in his hands, jotting down stuff as he watches a movie on his laptop. They both give him small waves of acknowledgement when they see him before going back to their own things.

 

Jihoon falls onto his bed, exhaling as he his back hits the mattress. As he stares at the ceiling, he thinks about how it was like to watch Woojin as he was absorbed in doing something he loved, and the feeling of being able to relate to the feeling, though it may have been about a different subject. Woojin, just like Jihoon had dreams. So did Donghan, and Samuel and everyone in this house right now. They all have something that drive them, that inspires them to go out there and put all of themselves into whatever that may be.

 

“Donghan?” Said boy sends him a questioning glance as he sits up, “What do you plan to do in the future?”

 

“Direct?” Donghan gestures to the movie playing on his laptop, and though he’s told Jihoon that before, Jihoon wants to know more.

 

“Yeah I know but what’s the reason you wanted to go into film directing?” Donghan looks confused at the sudden inquiry, but Jihoon gives him a sincere look of curiosity and he pauses his video. “Whenever we watch a movie you’re always pointing out all of the good shots and the meaning behind every angle and when you think a scene was shot really well. What made you interested in paying attention to those details?”

 

Donghan looks surprised at his genuine interest, and Jihoon starts to feel like a really shitty friend, He spins his chair to face Jihoon, “Um, I guess I’ve been interested in it for a long time. My dad wasn’t home a lot of the time due to work, but whenever he had free time he’d take us to see a movie. At first, I was just happy that I was able to spend time with him, and then one time I had noticed how cool the camerawork was in one movie we watched and I pointed it out to him. He seemed impressed that I was able to catch the meaning behind the angles and the blocking so whenever we watched movies after that, I’d watch intently to pick up on things and I’d explain it to him and he’d compliment me.

 

“And then he told me that I’d be able to consider being a director when I grow up, and after that I was just set on it.”

 

He notices the same gleam in Donghan’s eyes when he’d seen Woojin dance—it’s the same passion, that same love. Jihoon had always known that Donghan’s dad was supportive of Donghan’s dream, but he’d never actually heard the story behind it. The corners of his lips curl up instinctively as Donghan finishes with his own smile, “That’s really great that your dad was able to help you realize that.”

 

“Yeah. And hey, maybe we’ll be able to work on a project together in the future.”

 

“That’d be cool,” Jihoon grins, “Except for the thought of having to be ordered around by you.”

 

Donghan and Samuel join him in laughing, “Hey! I have to deal with your dramatic ass so it’s technically fair.”

 

The conversation continues into the night as Samuel discusses his plans to become a dance instructor and maybe open up his own studio one day. He talks about how he wants to help as many kids as he can build towards the same dream as him—he wants to validate their hobbies and encourage them not to give up, like how he had almost done. Jihoon knows about Samuel’s recent slump; for almost a whole year Samuel had been doubting skills, wondering if he was even good enough. Before he was accepted into Echo, he was hard on himself for not being able to be quick on his feet during freestyle battles and chiding himself on being too repetitive and predictable. But Jihoon and Donghan kept insisting that he audition, and he’s never seen Samuel as happy as he was when he had seen his name on the list. With the acceptance into one of South Korea’s best dance crews, Samuel had finally started to believing in himself as much as Jihoon and Donghan did.

 

Jihoon can feel the passion swirl through the air—he can see the way every one of them try to feed it and keep it alive, he can see how it in turn helps them grow. He can sense the struggle and the uncertainty, but even then it’s overpowered by the devotion. The whole camp is full of fire—filled with people of unrivaled fervor and determination to thrive. And that’s the real beauty of the camp, watching it light the fire in everyone’s souls.

 

 

 

 


	4. four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _non semper erit estas_ — it will not always be summer

 

 

 

 

| _non semper erit estas_

 

 

 

 

It becomes a routine for them to stay back after the day’s activities were done to work on Woojin’s section. Jihoon finds himself picking up a bit of Woojin’s perfectionism, because every time Woojin praises him on a move, he still wants to work on it because he knows he can be better, even if he can’t be as sharp as Woojin. The group besides him consisted of Woojin, Yoojung and Chungha for Christ’s sake. Jihoon is going to need to do a whole lot of cleaning if he wants their section to be mind-blowingly synchronic.

 

“Hey, don’t work yourself too hard.” Woojin stops the music when he sees Jihoon hunched over catching his breath after their last run through. 

 

“I have to.” Jihoon says firmly, standing up straight. “I’m the most lacking in our group, I need to pull my own weight.”

 

“You’re doing fine, Jihoon. Really, you have all the moves down and you’re pretty clean.”

 

“Pretty clean isn’t clean enough.” Jihoon mutters, and then gestures for Woojin to play the music again. But Woojin unplugs his phone from the aux cable and comes over to talk Jihoon by the arm and off of the dance floor.

 

“I think you need a stress reliever.”

 

And that’s how Jihoon finds himself scream-singing with Woojin into a microphone at a karaoke room on the outskirts of the camp. They’re jumping around and singing to all of their favorite songs, doing really bad impressions and laughing until they’re clutching at their stomachs for air. Jihoon comes to realize just how ridiculous Woojin is, with his loud antics and weird movements, and somehow it’s still endearing. He enjoys his company a lot more than he normally allows himself to admit, but today he’s thankful that Woojin is doing this for him.

 

Jihoon is falling onto the couch and huffing into his microphone as they finish the last song in their queue, “I—I don’t think this was a smart stress reliever because I’m a hundred times more exhausted now.”

 

“Yeah, probably.. should have gone for something.. that requires less energy.” Woojin agrees, equally as worn out.

 

“I had fun though.” Jihoon says as sits up and meets Woojin’s eyes.

 

“Me too.” Woojin gives him a lazy smile as he closes his eyes and Jihoon takes in a sharp breath at the sight.

 

They quickly pack up their stuff when their time is done and head towards the nearest convenience store to makes themselves ramen. At first, they talk casually about the competition, recall things about their switch days, laugh at their stupid mistakes. Then they talk about their friends—Woojin tells him about how thankful he is for them, for sticking around and putting up with him even though he may be a pain in the ass. And he’s thankful for Yerim, and how she stays up past her bedtime just to make sure Woojin gets home safe after dance practice.

 

“She’s wonderful.” Jihoon says, “Terrifying at times, but wonderful.”

 

Woojin chuckles, “Oh, definitely terrifying.”

 

They fall into a comfortable silence for a bit, and then Jihoon speaks up, “Donghan is going to be a director when he grows up.” Woojin raises a curious brow, turning his entire body towards him, indicating that Jihoon has his full attention, “He’s watched countless movies with his dad when he was a kid. He’s so attentive to detail that even at a young age he was able to interpret the meanings behind the way a movie is shot the way it is. And I don’t have any doubts that he won’t be a great one.”

 

When he looks at Woojin, the brunette is propped up by his elbow, looking at him with this tender look in his eyes that has his stomach doing flips and encourages him to keep going.

 

“And Samuel wants to start his own dance studio. He’s a bit of a kid himself, but maybe that’s why he’s so great with them, and that’s how I know that he’ll do amazing as their instructor.” Jihoon stops to chew on his lip before continuing while fiddling with his fingers, “And you have the same spark in your eyes when you dance. It’s like you don’t even have to tell me that it’s your entire life, because I can already see it when I watch you. You want to do this for the rest of your life, and you deserve that and honestly the whole world deserves that.”

 

Jihoon isn’t sure how he’s able to hold eye contact at this point but he does because he’s sincere, and he wants Woojin to know that. “Wow.” Woojin tilts his head and presses his lips together, “What encouraged you to figure out all of that?”

 

There’s a beat as he considers this, then biting his lip, he continues, “Someone once made me realize that it’s important to learn more about the people I care about.”

 

The smile playing on Woojin’s lips grows wider and they both look down at their fidgety hands simultaneously, there’s a short silence before Jihoon can see Woojin look back up at him through his peripheral vision, “So,” He starts, prompting Jihoon to raise his head to meet his eyes though he’s scared they’ll tell everything, “The people you care about..” _Oh no_. “That includes me?”

 

Jihoon immediately starts clearing his throat, shifting in his seat (and almost falling off of it) and turning to look out the window of the convenience store, propping his chin in his palm and humming. He doesn’t even need to look at Woojin to know that his smile is growing more teasing by the second.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Anyways.” Jihoon stands up, awkwardly stealing glances at Woojin, who’s silently snickering at him, “Let’s get back to the villa.”

 

They walk back to the camp in what might be a comfortable silence for Woojin but Jihoon is being suffocated in it. He tries not to think about how close their walking or feel hyper-aware of their brushing fingertips, but he doesn’t make any move to pull his hand away. And neither does Woojin.

 

When they’re outside of their separate rooms, Jihoon feels some a tinge of regret wafting in the air between them. The both turn to look at each other before they leave, rocking back and forth awkwardly on their feet.

 

“Hey,” Woojin says softly, “I’m proud of you. For doing that.”

 

Jihoon nods, raising a hand to rub the back of his neck. “It’s something I should have done a long time ago.”

 

Woojin shoves his hands into his pockets, eyes darting around the room before settling on him, “Goodnight.”

 

Jihoon gives him a small smile, “Night.”

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

They spend a lot of their time together, alone in the dance studio after practices as they go through their piece. At one point, after they figure that they’re pretty solid on all of the moves, they end up choreographing something small together, not for the competition but just because they want to do something that would just be for the two of them.

 

Sometimes they would just sit around and talk. Woojin finds himself filing away every single expression and reaction of Jihoon’s into a catalogue in his mind, so he knows what makes him angry, knows what excites him, and knows what wavers him. But along the way it seems as if all he’s looking for now are the things that make him happy. Like when Woojin talks about the dramas that he’s seen that Jihoon likes himself, and when he indulges in the talent of the actors and the scenes he wants to recreate.

 

Jihoon suggest that they recreate a scene from a drama they both enjoy so he can practice grasping emotions. Woojin declines at first, because he doesn’t think he’d be able to keep a straight face. But if there’s one thing among that many things that Jihoon Is good at, it’s persuading him. So that’s how Woojin finds himself standing across from Jihoon, trying his best to keep his composure as Jihoon recites the lines from the dramatic scene.

 

Jihoon opens his mouth to say something but Woojin immediately bursts into laughter, falling onto the floor as he clutches at his stomach for air.

 

“I’ve literally said like negative two words, Woojin, what the fuck.”

 

Said boy is still rolling on the floor with his arms crossed over his stomach, heaving for air and wiping a tear away. “S-sorry I can’t take this seriously.”

 

Jihoon sighs, then holds out a hand to pull Woojin back up onto his feet, “You’re a terrible acting partner.”

 

“Hey!” Woojin takes offense to that, though they both know it’s true, “If you’ve forgotten I’m not the actor here.”

 

“Well you could at least _try_ to be helpful.” Jihoon points out and Woojin regains his composure, taking in deep breaths before giving Jihoon the go signal.

 

“Where are you going?” Jihoon falls into character immediately, looking up at Woojin with those expressive eyes. “Are you running away again? I asked if you were running away from me.”

 

Woojin stays quiet like he should, eyes focused on the clocking hanging on the wall behind Jihoon. Then after a moment he he speaks up in a curt voice, “Sergeant Seo Dae Young. I was ordered to..” At that moment Jihoon slaps him across the face, and though it’s not as hard as he knows it could have been, he’s still shocked at the contact. Woojin grabs his cheek, wincing, “Why did you slap me for real?!”

 

Jihoon rolls his eyes, “Don’t break character!”

 

“But—“

 

The blonde shoots him a warning look, and with much hesitation, Woojin stands up straight again and continues, “Return to the homeland.”

 

Jihoon hits his chest with his fist, “Tell me this is a strategic retreat.” The punches at his chest get harder as Jihoon gets more emotionally invested in the scene, tears welling up in his eyes, “Tell me to wait. Tell me that you’ll come back, whatever it takes.” 

 

Woojin returns a few lines before he’s supposed to leave, and as he’s walking past Jihoon, the blonde grabs him by the wrist to stop him. The next move is supposed to be Woojin spinning back and pulling Jihoon into a hug, but instead he stops half way through pulling Jihoon in, and the older stops right in front of him, confused at the sudden stop. He looks up and Woojin’s breath hitches; he hadn’t even realized how dangerous it would be to accept Jihoon’s offer but now he’s realizing that maybe he should have said no. He’s so close that he can see the long lashes that shield the twinkle in Jihoon’s eyes—that Woojin wants to believe is from the glistening tears rimming his eyes but knows that even without the tears they still shimmer—and his rosy cheeks that heated up from the intense scene and _fuck_ , he really shouldn’t be standing this close.

 

The stand there in silence until Jihoon breaks it, “Um, what are—“

 

Woojin clears his throat, pulling away from the other boy, “Sorry, I forgot what was supposed to happen. But uh, good scene.”

 

Jihoon nods awkwardly, “You too.”

 

Woojin tries to break the tense air, chuckling softly, “I just stood there.”

 

Jihoon smiles back, “Yeah, and you managed to not fuck it up—well, kind of. So, good job.”

 

“Thanks, I think.”

 

 

+

 

 

 

“You look like you’re in a good mood.” Daehwi comments when he enters their room. Donghyun is out somewhere with Youngmin so it’s just them two, and Woojin can’t remember the last time they’d had this kind of time together to just be in each other’s presence.

 

Woojin shrugs innocently, falling onto his bed. “Really? I’ve had a super uneventful day, I don’t why you’d think that.”

 

Daehwi snorts, “You’d think that the amount of time you spent with Jihoon would somehow improve your acting skills but you’re still atrociously terrible at hiding your feelings.”

 

Woojin rolls his eyes at the younger, “Will you just say what you want to say already?”

 

He feels the side of the bed dip down as Daehwi sits on the edge of it. He can feel his eyes on him, expectant. “I _meant_ , you seem to be in a good mood after hanging out with Jihoon after every practice.”

 

Woojin lets his head fall onto its side, narrowing his eyes at Daehwi. “What are you trying to say?”

 

“I think we both know what I’m trying to say.”

 

Woojin doesn’t know how he does it, but Daehwi manages to coax everything out of him without even specifying anything. He lets out a long sigh, picking at a loose thread on his pillow as he thinks about what to say, “Well, can you blame me?”

 

Daehwi chuckles softly, “No, I can’t. He’s really cute.”

 

“Exactly.” Woojin groans, rolling over until his face is pressed into his pillow and he’s struggling to breathe. “And that’s only one thing out of like a thousand other things.”

 

“I’m all ears.” Daehwi says, patting the back of his head.

 

Woojin turns to press his cheek into his pillow, giving Daehwi a look, “Even if it would take hours?”

 

Daehwi smiles, “That’s what best friends are for.”

 

And like that, everything he’s held back from talking about spills out in front of Daehwi, all as the other listens earnestly.

 

Jihoon is the first thing Woojin hopes to see when he leaves his room in the morning. At the beginning of it all he had dreaded every time he had to see Jihoon, but now he feels like a morning isn’t really a good morning until he sees him. When he walks into the living room and sees Jihoon chatting with Donghan and Samuel by the TV and he’s genuinely laughing, it distracts him from his line of vision and he’s always a centimeter away from flinging himself over the back of the couch that he always ends up walking into when he’s being drawn by the stupid pretty blonde.

 

He sees the furrow in his brows as he’s working at perfecting a move, practicing in his own little bubble with any given chance because he doesn’t think he’s on par with the rest of the group despite showing time and time again that he has what it takes to be a part of Echo in the first place. 

 

Woojin could spend hours trying to paint a picture so beautiful to try and take Jihoon’s breath away but in the end he’d still be the one lacking air, because no canvas could ever depict his smile as well as he does. He’s a summer rain—watercolor raindrops that wash his blues away. Woojin is a hopeless romantic with the summer heat pulsing through his veins, basking in what it means to be youthful and free during these endless summer days that he’s somehow still running out of.

 

Jihoon is the summer he never wants to end.

 

 

+

 

 

 

Two weeks of tough practice goes by quickly; their stunts are cleaner and their moves are sharper. Daniel praises Woojin on his section and says that their group is the strongest one. That, of course, prompts the competitiveness in the other groups, though Daniel shuts that down immediately by showing equal appreciation and admiration to the other groups and to the group as a whole.

 

Jihoon thinks that they’ve become a lot like a family, one that may have been a little dysfunctional at first, and maybe even still a little rocky, but they believe in each other and they push each other to do their best. Jihoon is glad he’s found friends in South 51, and he’s grateful that he’s been able to learn so much from them and from the entire camp experience.

 

The Jihoon before this camp would have never in his wildest dreams would have thought he’d come to learn to like South 51. But he thinks that he’s been changed and influenced in many ways just this summer alone that he has in the last few years. He was able to find that little push he needed to realize just how important acting was to him, just like how everyone else’s dreams were important to them, and he’s going to do it for himself, not for anyone else, because acting is what he loves to do. It gives him a chance to explore things he’d never be able to experience in his life; it opens his eyes to the kinds of struggles that people go through and how similar someone he thought was so different from him actually is.

 

Samuel comes to sit down beside him while he’s sitting in the sand, just close enough to the water that he can dip his toes into it. “So, Donghan told me that you liked me, or at least thought you liked me.”

 

Jihoon’s whips his head towards Samuel with wide-eyes, spluttering, “What the hell? Why would he do that?”

 

“It slipped out by accident and he’s currently writing his will before you get back to the villa.”

 

Jihoon lets out a long exhale through a tight-lipped smile, clenching his jaw and fists, “Oh he better be.”

 

“But I know that you don’t.” Samuel says, “You like someone, but it’s not me.”

 

He narrows his eyes at the brunette while fiddling with one of the beads on his bracelet between his fingers, “What are you talking about?”

 

Samuel sits up from his hunched position then leans back onto his arms, “You like Woojin, don’t you?” The moment he says it Jihoon lets go of his bracelet that he had been pulling at, and it snaps hard at his wrist. Wincing, he rubs at the red spot as Samuel continues, “You used to think you liked me, but now Woojin is in the picture.”

 

Mouth agape, he stammers out, “W-what? That’s, no that’s—“

 

“I see the way you are around him, Jihoon. It’s different from when you’re with anyone else.” The brunette points out, “You’re comfortable, you’re unapologetically yourself. He allows you to be the Jihoon that isn’t a construct built by your environment and your bringing up. You’re not son of a CEO, soon-to-be-famous-actor Park Jihoon, you’re just Jihoon.”

 

Jihoon hears his heartbeat loud in his ears, unprepared for the sudden insight.

 

“—And maybe that’s why Woojin likes you so much.”

 

And then his palms get clammier and his breath quickens—a starking contrast to the calm rush of the waves in front of him. “You don’t know that.”

 

“I may not need to hear it,” Samuel puts a hand on Jihoon’s shoulder, squeezing, “When I can see it.”

 

And with that, the brunette walks away, leaving him with the moonlight and his deafening thoughts.

 

Did he like Woojin? All he knows is that he enjoys being with him and loves watching him dance and really, _really_ enjoys seeing him in his natural state, joking around with his friends and providing everyone joy with his silliness and being an actual ray of sunshine all of the time and—oh God, this is what liking someone is, isn’t it?

 

Jihoon doesn’t _do_ crushes—at least, he never has in the past. Sure, he’s thought people were cute, but it’s never gone past the surface before. So what was it about Woojin that made him second guess every thought and routine that was normally his? Jihoon’s climb to grasping the entirety of his feelings is a slow progress as he sits at the edge of the water for the rest of the evening.

 

At first he tries to fight it—what was the use in developing feelings for someone who was going to be going back to Busan in less than a month? If he simply stopped thinking about Woojin then everything would stop. His feelings would go away and he wouldn’t have to deal with being nervous around him anymore. But then he figures out that maybe that isn’t the way feelings work because no matter how hard he tries to rid himself of any thoughts of Woojin, trying to focus solely on himself and the competition, Woojin’s voice and his laugh and his face float through his mind, clinging to him like a second skin.

 

He repeats it like a mantra in his mind, _Woojin is just Woojin, he’s just an average person like everyone else at this camp_. Except the more he repeats it the more he realizes that Woojin _isn’t_ just Woojin. He’s the Woojin that works with him tenaciously despite how difficult he is. He’s the Woojin that gives him so much of his time without asking for anything in return, he’s the Woojin that wants to give him his time, just like Jihoon wants to give him his. He’s the Woojin who believes in him; he’s the Woojin that lets him be Jihoon.

 

He’s the Woojin that Jihoon has hopelessly fallen for.

 

 

 

 

When he’s back in his room later that night, Woojin is bursting through his door uninvited. “Hey, I’m gonna use your bathroom, okay?” He doesn’t even wait for approval before walking straight into the bathroom and closing the door. Jihoon didn’t even have time to react to his presence, but as he thinks back to his conversation with Samuel, he feels his face heat up, and it only gets worse when he hears the shower go on.

 

_It’s okay, Jihoon. Just don’t think about it. Don’t think about Woojin showering like 5 feet away from you, just don’t._

He distracts himself by watching a drama, putting in his earphones and keeping his eyes glued to his laptop screen. It does manage to keep him preoccupied for a period of time, but then he hears the doorknob of the bathroom twisting even through his earphones and for some reason, _God knows why_ , he feels the need to turn his head towards the door.

 

This turns out to be the wrong thing to do, because now he barely has a second to think about how impractical it is for Woojin to be walking around shirtless in the same room as him before he’s standing right at the edge of his bed, right in front of him, in all of his glory, sweatpants hanging dangerously low on his hips.

 

“God, would you put on a shirt?” Jihoon complains, snapping his head towards his laptop screen but he can’t even bring himself to press play because nothing in his head is functioning right now.

 

Woojin snorts as he’s drying his hair carelessly with his towel, “You act like you haven’t dressed me before.”

 

“It’s different when I’m looking at you _as_ you compared to when I’m just.. looking at you.” He trails off slowly, realizing he may not have been as subtle as he could have been with his struggle.

 

When he looks back up again, Woojin is doing that annoying smirk that makes Jihoon weak in the knees, “Told you I look amazing without a shirt on.”

 

Samuel was wrong, he hates him. He hates Park Woojin _so_ much.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

He doesn’t know why it comes as a shock to him but it does. He’s always known that Daehwi was smart, but maybe this time he’s just being dumb.

 

Daehwi stares at him for a long while. It’s switch day and Jihoon squirms under the younger’s scrutinizing gaze, wordless as he examines him. “There’s something weird about you.”

 

“Isn’t that me like every day?” Jihoon laughs it off awkwardly, eyes going to focus on the TV screen in front of them.

 

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t admit that.”

 

Jihoon stutters, “W-well sometimes I’m self-aware.”

 

Daehwi purses his lips but doesn’t look like he’s going to press the subject further, “Anyways, we’re gonna go biking tomorrow during our free time, you wanna come?”

 

Jihoon shrugs noncommittally, it’s not like he would have to deal with it because he’d be back in his own body tomorrow, and Woojin probably would have accepted the offer anyways, so he nods, “Sure.”

 

He jumps when Daehwi lets out a loud gasp, now staring at him wide-eyed. “Oh my God, you really aren’t Woojin..”

 

Jihoon gapes at the younger, how could he have figured that out with one word? As he’s looking for words he sees Woojin come down the stairs, hoping that if he gapes long enough then Woojin would realize it’s a signal of distress. He seems to get the message, because he’s striding towards them cautiously. “What’s up?”

 

“I was just asking if Woojin wanted to go biking tomorrow and he said sure.”

 

“What?” Woojin turns to Jihoon, “But you don’t know how to ride a bike, remember?”

 

Jihoon looks confused, “I—I don’t?”

 

“No, you _don’t_.”

 

“How do you not know how to bike?” Jihoon’s words drown out mid burst while Woojin is pressing fingers at his temples. Daehwi gasps again, looking back and forth between him and Woojin.

 

“You..” He points at the two of them in disbelief, “Have you two switched bodies or something?”

 

They both look at him, lost for words, “Uhhhh,” Woojin drawls out, “If we said yes would you think we were crazy?”

 

“Oh my God.” Daehwi stands up, pacing around the living room, “I had a feeling that something was off but I didn’t think it’d be something like this! What the heck is going on?”

 

“We don’t know either.” Woojin admits, sitting down next to Jihoon as they watch a bewildered Daehwi circling the coffee table.

 

Daehwi stops and sits down beside Woojin, who’s currently in Jihoon’s body, searching his eyes. “So.. you’re Woojin?”

 

Woojin nods slowly, “I know it’s not an easy thing to wrap your head around but yeah, it’s me.”

 

The younger narrows his eyes suspiciously, “Then name things that you would know about me and Jihoon wouldn’t.”

 

“You’re left handed, you lived in America for six years and Japan for two. You like collecting candles for a reason that I still don’t understand and one time you took me to go candle-making and I burnt my hand and I’ve hated you for it ever since.” Woojin ends and Daehwi is even more stunned than before. “And you were in love with me in like the ninth grade.”

 

Daehwi snaps out of his perplexed state to hit Woojin, “I was not! I was _dared_ to write you a love letter!”

 

Woojin snickers, “It was a very heartfelt love letter.”

 

Daehwi waves a dismissive hand at the boy, “Whatever. Anyways, how did this happen? And why is it still happening?”

 

“We think it was triggered on the day after Nationals.” Jihoon explains.

 

“Remember when I was stopped by him before we got on the bus to go home and we got into an argument?” Daehwi nods, “Jihoon says that it might have been because of the statue we were standing in front of that made us switch because we were fighting.”

 

“Like Freaky Friday?”

 

Jihoon lights up, “Yes! Thank you!”

 

He ignores the way Woojin rolls his eyes at him. “So we think that to switch back, we’d have to be on good terms with each other. Except that ended up not working either.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“We tried the second night we arrived here, after check in, but it didn’t work. And then we tried again like two weeks ago around the same time but it didn’t work either and we don’t know what to do.” Jihoon finishes. 

 

Daehwi chews on his lip, expression thoughtful, “So there’s another factor in play other than your feelings?”

 

“Must be.” Woojin sighs, “We’ve been trying to figure out the possible reasons for the change but we haven’t come up with anything yet.”

 

“You said both times you tried it was after check in right?”

 

Jihoon nods, “Yeah, around midnight.”

 

“Do you think it has to do with the time of day?”

 

Woojin shrugs, “I’m not sure why that would matter.”

 

Daehwi seems to be recalling something by the way his forehead is creasing. Jihoon and Woojin share confused glances as they wait for the younger to speak up. Suddenly, Daehwi claps his hands and jumps in his seat frantically, “Oh! Remember back in literature class, Mr. Han was talking about twilight?”

 

Woojin furrows his brows, “No, but go on.”

 

“He said that it’s the time between day and night, where the world blurs and one might encounter something that isn’t human.”

 

Jihoon sits up, intrigued. “I remember the sun setting around that time.”

 

“So we switched at twilight?”

 

Daehwi nods, “And maybe you need to go back at twilight to be able to switch again.”

 

Woojin gasps and Jihoon hits him in the shoulder, “We should have confided in him a long time ago.”

 

Woojin raises his hands defensively, “Hey, I didn’t think he’d have that kind of information.”

 

“So we can go tonight.” Jihoon continues, unable to sit still at the realization.

 

“We could be back in our own bodies tonight.” Woojin says incredulously, “And we wouldn’t have to worry about the competition being on a switch day.”

 

The two of them move to pull Daehwi into a hug, “Ow! Alright.. this is nice and all but.. blood circulation.”

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

They reach the park just as the sun is setting around 8pm, after they’ve finished their schedules. Daehwi accompanies them for moral support, and because he wants to be there as a witness in case ‘ _something magical happens’_.

 

Woojin tenses, drumming his fingers against his thighs as they’re walking towards the statue. This is it, probably the last chance they’ll be able to visit the statue that had switched them and try to switch back. What if it didn’t work? What if they were stuck swapping forever?

 

“Hey, I can _hear_ you thinking from here.” Jihoon’s voice brings him out of it, and he feels as the blonde takes his hand in his, squeezing tightly. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna switch back. This all ends right now.”

 

They reach the statue shortly after, and Woojin notices their hands still clasped together. He waits until Jihoon lets go and watches as Jihoon examines the statue.

 

“Do you think we just need to stand here or do we have to talk to it again?”

 

Daehwi snickers behind them, “You talked to the statue last time?”

 

“We were desperate, okay?” Woojin shoots back defensively.

 

“So,” Daehwi starts as they stand there, waiting for something to happen. “The one who was flirting me back then was Jihoon?”

 

“Yes.” Woojin clarifies, shooting a glare at Jihoon, “You know I love you but not in that way.”

 

“That’s a relief. I spent like a month trying to figure out how to let you down easily.”

 

Jihoon starts laughing along with Daehwi and Woojin wonders if this sudden change in his feelings is going to prevent them from switching.

 

“Daehwi said you’re used to getting rejected anyways.”

 

Woojin lets out a strangled noise, drawing closer to Jihoon, irritated, “I’ve never even confessed to anyone before.”

 

“It’s okay, Woojin. I don’t blame you for repressing those memories.” Jihoon puts a hand on his shoulder in mock comfort, which Woojin whacks away.

 

“I hate you.” Woojin snarls, but Jihoon just gives him a smile.

 

“No you don’t.”

 

And suddenly there’s a wind curling around them, enveloping them in a violet smoke. They see as the topaz glint is joined by the violet that turns the skies lilac. They watch as tangerines, corals and dandelions swirl around both of them, painting the air and contrasting the indigo and emerald shadows on the ground, where mundane vanishes for a moment to let the symphony of colors flood the sky. They’re held in lofty suspension as the sun is fleeting and the moon is rising, where in the moment there is only them knotted with the silver lining of the universe. For a moment they get lost in twilight, as the moonlight enchants the horizon and the fireflies dance around them. It’s a lingering cascade back to the ground, they float like feathers as they touch the Earth again. The splendor of magentas and amethysts evanesce into the atmosphere, and they’re left in the increasingly sapphire night.

 

When Woojin looks back down, he’s looking at his own hands. And when he looks up, he sees Jihoon. “We did it.” He whispers dazedly.

 

“That.. just happened.” They both look towards Daehwi, who’s still frozen in place, astonished by the sight.

 

Woojin draws closer to Jihoon, lips tugging into a grin and still a little breathless, “Good job.”

 

Jihoon scoffs, a smile playing on his own lips, “You too.”

 

“Good job, Daehwi.” The younger says, nodding proudly and patting himself on the back. “You’re the one who helped these idiots find the last piece of their puzzle, _you’re_ the star here.”

 

Woojin chuckles, pulling Daehwi into a hug along with Jihoon.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

The night before competition day, they’re surround by a crackling fire on the beachside, the air filled with singing and laughter.

 

“Can you believe it?” Daniel says amazed, “A few months ago we hated each other’s guts, and now we’re like a family, working towards our dream together.”

 

“I have to admit.” Seongwoo starts, “Without you this never would have happened. Thanks for believing in us, in _me_.”

 

Daniel smiles warmly, squeezing Seongwoo’s thigh, “This is _our_ achievement.” He turns to the rest of the group, “And no matter what happens tomorrow, I’m really glad that the spirit stick brought us together.”

 

“To harmony.” Donghan says as he raises his cup of soda, and the others follow along.

 

“To harmony!”

 

As the night gets darker, most of the team head back to the villa, until only Woojin and Jihoon are left behind with the soft crackling of the campfire.

 

“This all comes to an end tomorrow.” Woojin says wistfully.

 

Jihoon takes in a deep breath, “Yeah, summer is almost over.”

 

They let the silence fall over them as they just appreciate each other’s presence.

 

Woojin thinks about the first time he had admitted to himself that he had found Jihoon attractive. It’s not like it’s any kind of big deal to make that inference, but at the time, Woojin was appalled at himself for even allowing himself to think such things. So the second he admitted it, he thought that it would be the end of it. But then Jihoon kept showing up with his twinkling eyes and blonde hair spun like gold and Woojin’s thoughts had never been so constant and _loud_. And then it was like he couldn’t even eat without thinking about how Jihoon was probably eating where he was too.

 

He had been so irked at the persistent thoughts, and it only got worse when he was actually in Jihoon’s body and therefore forced to look at him in the mirror during practice, especially after they had fought and Woojin detested seeing his face. But then their groups had come together and they were forced to get along for the sake of the competition. And Woojin ended up realizing just how alike they were. He had been so hung up on his city kid stereotypes to realize they were all just young people with goals, doing their best to work towards them.  Really, there weren’t all that different after all. Maybe that’s why they were able to work so well together once they put their differences aside, because they were working towards the same goal, because they were all the same inspired, driven people that found happiness in dancing.

 

Summer has always been about discovery to Woojin, and the experiences and lessons he’s had in these two months alone have taught him so much. _Jihoon_ has taught him so much.

 

If he’s being honest, Woojin may or may not have asked Daehwi to evacuate the beach near midnight so he would spend time alone with Jihoon. But as he’s looking at the blonde, who puts the stars behind him to shame. he see the flaw in his plan.

 

And that flaw is that Jihoon is absolutely _flawless_ and now his throat is dry and none of the trees lining the beach are giving him the oxygen he so desperately needs right now. He watches as the moonlight plays off of his smooth complexion, the relaxed expression on his face as he watches the fire, but Woojin thinks that Jihoon is the most enticing sight of their entire surroundings.

 

Jihoon seems to notice the way Woojin’s eyes linger on his face because he’s turning to him with a lifted brow.

 

“So,” Woojin starts, swallowing though it’s not of much help now that his heart is lodged in his throat, “We don’t hate each other.”

 

Jihoon grins, “Guess not.”

 

“But we don’t exactly _just_ like each other.”

 

The blonde looks playfully contemplative, pursing his lips and he puts a finger to his chin, “Nope. I think we’d have to add another ‘like’ in the middle of that.”

 

“So we _like_ like each other.”

 

“That’s how middle schoolers describe their feelings.”

 

“You’re a middle schooler.” Woojin shoots back childishly, enjoying the sound of Jihoon’s laugh.

 

“Nice comeback.”

 

“Nice face.”

 

“It is a pretty amazing face, isn't it?” Jihoon puts on a playful haughty look that makes Woojin adore him even more.  

 

Time seems to freeze for the second time as they’re looking at each other, perhaps for a little too long and Woojin thinks that he should pull away before he does something impractical, but then he remembers this is _Jihoon_ and he’s as impractical as his mundane life is going to get, and he _loves_ it.

 

Jihoon leans in and presses their lips together, at first in a gentle and subdued way. And then Woojin is pulling him closer by the waist, fingers digging into the soft skin of his sides. Woojin pours every second he’s waited to do this into the moment, relish in Jihoon’s touch, Jihoon’s warmth, _Jihoon_. He’s like the sea, and the affection washes over him as strong as the tide.  

 

It’s so incandescent that it lingers on his lips, but it’s not long enough and Woojin wants to get used to the magical feeling. He wants this moment to last, he wants romance to last a little longer. He doesn’t want summer to slip away.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

The morning of competition day, the group is in a frenzy as they’re running through the choreography and they’re walking up and down the stairs and dancing while they wait for Sohee and Donghyun to finish with their lunch.

 

After they eat they head down to where the stage is set up outside, in the middle of the camp grounds as they find a generous number of people already seated in the bleachers, awaiting the start of the show.

 

“Alright guys, don’t psyche yourselves out.” Daniel says as the head behind the curtains where the rest of the teams were waiting, “We got this! We’ve practiced hard and like we always say, hard work never betrays you.”

 

“Right.” Seongwoo pitches in, “I have faith in you guys, let’s win this!”

 

“I have faith in you.” Woojin says as he puts a hand on Jihoon’s shoulder dramatically.

 

Jihoon does the same, drawing in a breath and dawning a confident tight-lipped smile. “And I don’t have faith in you. But I have faith in me and I’m hoping that’s good enough.” Woojin flicks his arm off of him with a sneer, but it’s relieved instantly with Jihoon’s smile. “We’re a good team, and it’s gonna win us first place.”

 

Woojin smirks, “You bet your egotistical ass it will.”

 

They’re set to perform last, so it’s quite a bit of a wait as they watch on as teams from both Camp Spirit and Camp Victory take the stage. When Taemin’s group is called up, they all crowd around the side of the stage to watch. From the very beginning, their performance is flashy and strong. None of them can deny the talent and the impressive choreography. Woojin starts to get nervous as their performance goes on, palms getting sweaty as their turn nears. He takes in deep breaths and remembers what he’s doing this for—for his love of dancing, for himself, and for his team who are all proud of each other regardless of the result. He feels Jihoon’s hand in his and he’s ready for it.

 

“Up next, a team composed of two unlikely groups, from the members of Echo and South 51, here is Move in Harmony!”

 

They enter from the left and right to upstage, holding their poses as they wait for the music to start. In an instant they transform, fire in their eyes as they turn towards the audience and stride downstage, holding themselves valiantly. The cheers from the crowd strengthen their confidence and they move with everything they have. Like their name, they move in perfect harmony, playing off of each other’s energy and enjoying the stage. They start it off full of energy, all of their hard work and long hours of practice poured into the performance they’ve all been preparing for. The music slows down and they get through Woojin’s section smoothly, with whistles and whoops from the audience. Woojin is further back in the formations enough to see Jihoon from the corner of his eye and can’t help the proud look that creeps up his face as he watches Jihoon perform _his_ choreograph with so much sureness.

 

Donghan leads his in group in just as their group exits the stage. There’s a few moments they get to rest while they’re backstage, heaving and waiting to get back on.  When Seunghoon starts his small solo, it’s their cue to come back on and they hope that they’re strong enough bases for the flyers to pull the stunt off cleanly. Woojin locks eyes with Jihoon before they lift Chungha and Doyeon up. They’re steady as some of the crowd stands up, and when the girls spin in the air and switch places, they have everyone on their feet, cheering and screaming. The tangible energy in the air drives them to push through even though they’re tired, pouring their hearts into their stage and _enjoying_ it.

 

The song speeds up and they roll easily into the switching vibes, doing canon sequences, twisting and weaving through formations seamlessly. Together, they’re patterns and rhythms that are all different but somehow still fit, an intangible glue that holds all of their styles together and fills up the cracks.

 

With the last of their energy, they finish off the song strong, holding the end pose as the crowd are on their feet and enshrouding them in a deafening applause. Woojin throws a look over his shoulder at Jihoon, smiling when he catches his eye. It’s one of the most amazing things to experience the lingering thrill, adrenaline pumping through his veins, and in the end of all of that, have no regrets.

 

 

 

After their performance, all of the teams are crowded behind the curtains as they wait for the announcement of the winner. Daniel and Seongwoo bring them in for one last talk as they’re waiting.

 

“Good job out there, guys.” Daniel says proudly, patting them on the backs, “I’m proud of all of you. We put our differences aside and we worked together.”

 

“And more importantly, we fucking killed it!” Seongwoo adds and the group whoops along with him.

 

“It doesn’t matter to me whether we win or not. I’m just glad that I was able to experience this, with all of you. This was the best summer I’ve ever had.” Daehwi expresses his happiness and everyone gathers him into a big group hug.

 

“Alright everyone. It’s time to announce the runner ups!” They hear announcer’s voice and they all crowd around behind the curtains as they wait with baited breaths, “In third place with an impressive piece, from Camp Spirit, _Dynasty_!”

 

They applaud for their fellow campmates, though they’re still anxious as they hope to hear their name. Woojin feels Daehwi and Jihoon both grab onto his hand, their heats beating together.

 

“And in second, from Camp Victory, the talented dancers under Lee Taemin, _Apprentice_!”

 

They’re in shock once they hear the name, throwing around glances, “Oh my God, that’s Taemin’s group! They’re in second?”

 

“We have a chance, guys!” Sohee squeals frenziedly.

 

“And finally, in first place, the group that gets to represent South Korea at the 2017 World Dance Festival,” Their grip on each other’s hands get tighter as they wait in suspense for the announcement, “A group that came together to form one of the strongest crews these festivals has ever seen, from Camp Spirit, _Move in Harmony_!”

 

The crowd roars and they’re all _whoop_ -ing and jumping, throwing their firsts in the air and screaming of joy as they run onto the stage to receive the trophy. Daniel raises the trophy high in the air and all of their hands go up, waving at the crowd and hugging each other. Woojin pulls Jihoon into his embrace immediately, lifting him off of his feet.

 

“We did it!” Jihoon shouts over the loud of the stage when Woojin puts him back down, smiling widely and it only makes Woojin feel even warmer.

 

As Boa is congratulating them, Taemin comes up to her with a a defeated smile, handing her back the spirit stick. She gasps, grabbing it back from him, “My spirit stick! I knew you took it! But why would you? You don’t even believe in it!”

 

“Yeah but you do.” Taemin says, and then points at the cheering group. “But it doesn’t seem like you need to anymore.”

 

“Okay, I know I said that speech about how it only matters that we worked hard and came together but _guys,_ we freaking _won_! We broke the curse!” Daehwi chants and they all cheer along with him.

 

With every competition he joins, no matter the result, Woojin knows that _God_ , it’s _so_ worth it.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

They’re packing all of their things the next day; it’s bittersweet—when they got here, they didn’t think that they’d end up leaving a second family behind. And though they know that they’re eventually going to meet up again—being as they won the chance to represent South Korea at the World Dance Festival together—it’s going to be different from seeing them every day, waking up and and enjoying mornings together, and then still being around each other at night, talking and growing fond of each other with every conversation.

 

Jihoon doesn’t want to go home and not see Woojin the next day. He doesn’t want to go home and not see Woojin for weeks on end, only able to talk to him through the phone and see him through video calls. A tangible Woojin is the best Woojin—he wants a little more time to hold his hand, to hug him, to _be_ with him.

 

He tells himself he won’t cry when he watches South 51’s bus roll away, he prepares himself the entire morning to keep himself together. But when Woojin is standing in front of him, luggage in hand, he can’t help but want to cry.

 

Woojin laughs when he sees him, pulling him into a hug and running his hands through his hair. “Why are you crying?”

 

“I’m not crying.” Jihoon retorts stubbornly, though even he can hear the crack in his voice.

 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Woojin says as he pulls away. Jihoon looks up at him, confused and probably very pitiful looking. “The letter came a few weeks ago and I found out when my mom called me. I got accept into Korea National University of Arts for the winter term.”

 

Jihoon looks at him slack-jawed and in slight disbelief, “What? Which campus?”  

 

“Jongno.” Woojin says with a smile.

 

Jihoon laughs gleefully, throwing his arms around Woojin’s neck, “Oh my God, Woojin, that’s like 20 minutes away by subway!” Woojin chuckles into the crook of his neck, wrapping his arms around his waist and hugging him tightly. When Jihoon pulls back he keeps his arms circling Woojin’s neck, looking up into those mirthful eyes, “I’m so proud of you.”

 

“Now I can take you a lot more coffee dates.” Jihoon flushes red at the mention of the word ‘date’, and then Woojin starts to stutter, ”U-Uh, if that’s what you want, of course..”

 

Jihoon inhales sharply and puts on a playful considering expression, “I’m gonna have to think about it.” He’s mischievous until Woojin looks genuinely worried and he’s tripping on his words to reassure him, “I-I’m kidding. I’d love that. As long as there are more than just coffee dates included in the package deal.” He ends with a smile and Woojin finally relaxes, lips curving into a smirk.

 

“Oh, it’s a great package deal. It includes Park Woojin _himself_.” He says proudly, sticking out his chin and puffing out his chest.

 

Jihoon hits him in the chest lightly, but Woojin overreacts and clutches at his heart with a pained expression, “Someone needs to contain that ego of yours.”

 

Woojin can only gape at him like a fish as Jihoon walks over to Daehwi to say his goodbyes to him.

 

 _His_ ego?

 

 

+

 

 

 

For the remainder of the year, they meet up in the middle every free chance they get. Jihoon misses Woojin in the weeks they’re too busy to hang out, anticipating each meeting more and more.

 

And then it’s finally January and Jihoon finds himself on a bus ride down to Seoul to pick Woojin up himself, and also to see a certain 13-year old brat who he would never admit he misses. 

 

Woojin meets him at the terminal and they share a long hug. It’s a chilly winter day but just being in Woojin’s presence makes the day warmer. When they reach his house, it feels a little weird for Jihoon to be back. For two months, he had spent every second day in this neighbourhood, at Woojin’s school, in his house. But now he’s back and in his own body, and he finds himself missing the times he spent here.

 

He hears a high-pitched, obnoxious voice yelling something at Woojin as she’s coming to open the door and smiles at the sound. When she sees him, she doesn’t recognize him. Not until Woojin leads him into the house and introduces him as Jihoon and she perks up at the name.

 

“Oh, so you’re the one who was living in this loser’s body a few months ago!”

 

Both of their jaws drop open at the casual bringing up of their switching, “Yerim, how did you know that?”

 

“You are _way_ too wise for a thirteen-year old.” Jihoon adds, still in disbelief, but also half impressed.

 

Yerim shrugs, “I’d like to believe I’m ahead of my age group.”

 

Jihoon snorts, falling back into the comfortable rapt he had built up with her, “You’re just as pretentious as your brother.”

 

“That’s funny cause he always used to say the same about you. He wasn’t very subtle about his breakdowns about you and the ‘switching’ thing over the phone.” She says with a snicker and Woojin clear his throat as Jihoon glares at him.

 

Yerim is giving him a once over again, looking to Woojin, and then back at Jihoon, “You are _way_ out of his league.” 

 

Jihoon bursts out into laughter, completing Yerim’s high-five as he turns to a deadpanning Woojin, “Oh yeah, _definitely_ ahead of her age group.”

 

There’s a knock at the door behind them and Jihoon opens it up to see an excited Daehwi, who immediately envelops him in a hug, “Oh! It’s the Woojin I like better!”

 

“Maybe I should just _disappear_.” Woojin grumbles, aggravated and trying to force back the smile that threatens to grace his face when Jihoon wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him closer, planting a kiss on his cheek.

 

“This is disgusting.” Yerim says behind them, walking further into the house and calling for Woojin’s mother. Daehwi, Youngmin and Donghyun file into the living room along with them. Sitting down for a while as they spend the last few minutes of Woojin’s time in Busan telling Jihoon embarrassing stories about Woojin’s past. Woojin sighs hard the entire time, belatedly regretting all of his life choices before high school, “Why did I have to be like this.”

 

Woojin’s mother greets Jihoon warmly, and even though he’s met her before when he was in Woojin’s body, it’s the first time he’s seeing her as Jihoon and as Woojin’s _boyfriend_ so he’s a lot more than just a _little_ nervous. But she’s as sweet as he remembers, making him feel comfortable and at home right away.

 

“Alright, Woojin. I called your aunt and told her you’d be there tomorrow night.” She holds his face in her hands for a while when they’re standing near the door, “I’m proud of you.” She says and Woojin smiles, nuzzling into her hold and Jihoon melts a little. “Go out there and show the world what talent is.”

 

“Thanks mom.” He hugs her tightly, and then moves to hug a more-sad-than-she-wants-to-admit Yerim.

 

“You better visit a lot.” She snaps, feigning indifference but Jihoon can see the tears glistening in her eyes.

 

“Don’t worry, your favorite Woojin will be back soon enough.” He chuckles and ruffles her hair. They bid his family one last goodbye before loading Woojin’s luggage into Youngmin’s car as they climb into the backseat with Daehwi.

 

It’s a quiet ride to the bus terminal. He smiles fondly as he watches the way Daehwi clutches Woojin’s hand wordlessly, looking out the window as Woojin puts another comforting hand on top of his. Then he’s reaching for Jihoon’s with his other hand, squeezing his hand tightly.

 

When they’re outside the bus, Woojin gives Donghyun and Youngmin tight hugs, as they share words of encouragement with him. Daehwi doesn’t look up from the ground when Woojin turns to him. Woojin pokes at Daehwi’s cheek fondly, though his smile is bittersweet. “Hey, I’m going now.” The younger doesn’t move, just brings his sleeves up to cover his face. “Are you not going to hug me?”

 

With those words, Daehwi’s arms fly up to circle Woojin’s neck, burying his face into the crook of his neck so he doesn’t have to see him cry but Woojin can hear his quiet sobs anyways. Woojin rubs his best friend’s back soothingly.

 

“We’re gonna see each other for WDF practices, you know.” He reminds him.

 

Daehwi stays nuzzled into his chest, voice muffled as he says, “It’s not the same.”

 

“I’ll call you every day, I promise.”

 

Daehwi sniffles as he finally looks up at Woojin, and seeing his best friend’s bloodshot eyes trigger tears of his own too, though he does his best to hold them back, or else he might not be able to leave. “You better. I’m going to replace you with Sohee if you miss even _one_ day.”

 

Woojin chuckles, “Even if its near midnight and I’m in the middle of a fire I’ll still call you.”

 

“You’re such a scatterbrain, Woojin. Don’t set your aunt’s house on fire!” Daehwi scolds him between his sniffles and Woojin laughs even harder.

 

“I won’t.” Daehwi’s arms are still wrapped tightly around him, and as much eh doesn’t want to let go either, his bus is about to leave, “You’re gonna have to let go at some point, Daehwi.”

 

“Here, I got him.” Donghyun pries Daehwi off of Woojin despite the younger’s protests, “Come on hon, he needs to get on the bus.”

 

Woojin gives them one last smile and a wave before he and Jihoon are boarding the bus to Seoul.

 

Seoul isn’t just a city, it’s a place that holds so many memories. It’s Jihoon, it’s South 51, it’s Echo—It’s Move in Harmony. Where love doesn't have to be temporary and affection doesn’t have to linger; they don’t have to be almost, now they can just _be_. Woojin can be Woojin, at a dance academy doing what he loves, and Jihoon can be Jihoon, training to be South Korea’s next big hit. And they can be them, Woojin and Jihoon, on countless late night karaoke and convenience store dates without having to worry about their time with each other being limited.

 

Come what may, even if the future is vague and hazy, sometimes uncertainty breathes more than plans can supply. And life is always full of uncertainty, but maybe having someone to face it with, someone to share every moment with, will help him conquer the very thing that hangs so fearsome over everyone’s lives. Maybe people will say that he’s chasing a fairy tale. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what life will bring, but he knows he wants to bring Jihoon with him.

 

Seoul is so much more than just a city—it’s the rest of Woojin’s tale waiting to be told.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha um i hope y'all didn't mind the length this got waaaay out of hand i did not plan for it to be this long LOL and im really sorry about the writing quality its uh? i wrote this in the midst of my finals so its not as good as i wanted it to be and i wish i was able to flesh it out more but this is all i could do in time for the deadline.
> 
> also!! you may have noticed that ongniel doesn't get much spotlight in this fic, and they clearly have a backstory so if any of you are interested in reading more about their past, as well as bits and pieces from this fic in their POVs as sort of a stand alone/side fic to this then let me know in the comments!! i'd be glad to develop them more


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